


The Purest Place in the Galaxy

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Kidnapping, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Force Ghosts, Headcanon, Kylo Ren is a problematic trashcan, Past Character Death, Rating May Change, Rey is an unproblematic goddess, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 80,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5579050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's ghosts on Dagobah, and they mean nothing but good things for Rey.</p><p>On the other hand, they seem absolutely bent on making Kylo Ren miserable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Najjaśniejsze miejsce w galaktyce](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7848292) by [feature_of_interest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feature_of_interest/pseuds/feature_of_interest)



> Please join me as I fling myself headfirst into the darkest, slimiest, most monster-infested trash compactor on this spaceship.
> 
> No but seriously, this is like a headcanon jam plus everything I ever wanted for these two, including Ren getting shit-talked by ghosts. This is one of those 'Rey is a Kenobi' things and if the series decides otherwise, then it shall be an AU where the same applies. I could get into discourse for days, but again, I am moving to a trash compactor where I will be very comfortable among my species. I will thrive in this new habitat.
> 
> Also, writing for Yoda is harder than I thought. Forgive me, you must. 
> 
> And major _major_ Buddhism/spirituality going on here. I remember reading that the Force is supposed to be based on it to a degree, so I jumped on the headcanon pony and went with it. It was fun.
> 
> (And you can totally read S4-M1 as 'Sami'. I do. They're my favorite character and I just made them up.)

Dagobah is full of ghosts, Rey comes to understand. They don’t intend to harm her, and for that matter, she’s yet to see one. Yet, they’re always there. She feels their presence most poignantly during her meditation sessions, surfacing to her consciousness in the form of tiny blips of light. They _are_ lifeforms, in a way, but different from the multitude of strange fauna that inhabit the planet. They exist inside the Force, and so they accompany it when it flows into her, when she moves it and captures its flow as she trains. Through this, she understands that there are spirits drawn to this tiny, insignificant portion of the galaxy, and as with everything else on Dagobah, she chooses to coexist with them.  
  
In reality, Rey wasn’t initially thrilled about Master Luke’s choice of training grounds, especially when he informed her that she would be going alone. It seemed thrilling, at first. But once he described the terrain and the things that inhabited it, returning to a sand planet like Jakku seemed more appealing. He told her about his time there with the Jedi Master Yoda, how there were times when even though he thought he was alone, he never truly was. He said it would be the perfect place to meditate, to hone her already formidable control of the Force, and to learn to let go. When she asked what he meant, he gave her a look she was coming to recognize as painful understanding.  
  
_Anger_ , he said. _It will destroy you. Anger, rage, hatred. You need to learn to let them all go._  
  
In the creaking, sloshing quiet of Dagobah, Rey begins to see what that means. Anger prevents her from emptying her mind completely. Rage kindles a slow burn in her chest that never abates. Hatred creates an image, a symbol of what stops her from letting go, and that image is of Kylo Ren.  
  
The ghosts surround her, and she believes that they understand.  
  
\---  
  
Her camp is so rudimentary and rugged that her hollow AT-AT on Jakku seems downright luxurious. Her shelter is an ancient gnarltree, dark green with growth and vines. One of the first things she learns about Dagobah is that there is no such thing as proper shelter, as everything is guaranteed to get soaked. If it doesn’t rain, the humidity does the job well enough. Sweat clings to every available surface of her skin, and no amount of wiping it off fixes the problem. The gnarltree does little other than just give her some closure of having some kind of roof over her head.  
  
Her sparse belongs are scattered between the tree and the X-wing fighter she borrowed. It’s a T-65B, older than her by quite a bit, but General Organa was very gracious, and Poe practically danced around the thing with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. What’s more, the Resistance provided her with an astromech, S4-M1, an excitable little droid that so far has done an excellent job of keeping Rey company. Other than the droid and the fighter, there’s bedding under the tree, a crate of rations, and a firepit Rey managed to build. It’s hardly anything to be proud of, but Rey can’t help herself.  
  
Rey’s time is split between the camp and a little outcropping of rock overlooking a particularly scenic part of the swamp, where the trees part just enough to provide a view of the sky (if it isn’t foggy or cloudy or otherwise dreary) and a pond so still that its surface is like glass. Rey meditates there, in a unique place where the sky, land, and water seem to be of one entity.  
  
Master Luke had told her to seek out a small dwelling on the planet, but Rey hasn’t had luck with that. There’s still plenty of time. More than enough.  
  
\---  
  
Dagobah’s nights are strange. They come slowly, with darkness crawling like thousands of creatures, stretching out and languishing in every crook and niche, shadows growing and joining up. They plunge the jungles and swamps into a thick, humid darkness, and even the darkness lives as much as the rest of the planet. It is a tangible thing, and if Rey closes her eyes, she can feel it crawl around her, curl contentedly by her side, whisper to her that all is well, that she is protected. Night is not an entity of the Dark side, she knows. There is so much light in it, from the stars that peek through the heavy cover of the clouds, to the tiny luminous fires that erupt and dance over the swamp when the night settles. Different things come out in the dark, and they are so full of life that Rey relishes in their presence, the way they sparkle like a constellation in the Force.  
  
But it’s in these nights that the ghosts first come.  
  
The first one she actually hears comes one night, nearly two weeks into her stay, if her chronometer is correct. S4-M1 seems to detect it first, as Rey awakens to their persistent beeps and whirs, chirping at something unseen.  
  
Rey cracks open one eye, rolls over to face the droid as they stand sentinel beside the gnarltree.  
  
“What? What is it?” Rey whispers, her hand already inching toward her lightsaber.  
  
_Danger?_ S4-M1 says in binary, but sounds unsure. It’s a query, like they’re asking the darkness itself. Something creaks in the distance, and there’s a splash in the nearest pond, but otherwise, there’s silence.  
  
Rey feels the ghost before she hears it. Nothing physical, but more like a pulse in the Force, and she latches onto it. It’s bright, a luminous little star in the gentle ebb and flow. She knows that something is different about it, as it feels like another person, has a signature similar to Master Luke’s, and one that Rey has rarely felt.  
  
A Jedi.  
  
“ _Oh._ ” Rey hears it, and almost thinks it was a hallucination. S4-M1 seems to disagree, judging by the crescendo of beeps signifying that they’re aware of someone else.  
  
“Hello?” Rey calls, glancing around the gloom but only seeing the outline of the gnarltree’s roots and the ghostly light of S4-M1’s chassis.  
  
No answer for a long stretch, and then, “ _Hello. I’m surprised you can hear me._ ”  
  
It’s a man, his voice deep and lilting, but pleasant. He sounds old, maybe a little gruff, but friendly. His light in the Force brightens, and Rey feels at ease, like she’s in the presence of an old friend.  
  
“You’re a Jedi,” she says matter-of-factly, although there’s a distinct thrill that passes through her at the notion. She sits up on her bedroll and pulls her knees to her chest, biting down on her bottom lip as she looks around. “Isn’t that right?”  
  
“ _It is,_ ” the ghost responds, sounding amused. “ _And I seem to have the honor of addressing a young Padawan._ ”  
  
The excitement coiling in her chest blooms and she can’t help the smile that unfurls across her face. It’s the first time she’s truly felt the Force and the Light side since she began her training with Master Luke, and the first time that anyone has spoken to her not just as Rey, not as a scavenger or a desert rat, but as a Padawan. A Jedi-in-training.  
  
“My name is Rey,” she says, still glancing around. S4-M1 gives its callsign as well, but manages to sound a little frustrated and not being able to catch sight of the Jedi ghost.  
  
There is another breath of silence before the ghost speaks again, and there’s a brief waver in his presence. “ _I am Qui-Gon Jinn,_ ” he replies. “ _Or, I was. Ages have come and gone since I passed._ ”  
  
The name sounds familiar, although Rey can’t seem to catch the drifting memory that would supply the reason. Instead, she nods to him, wherever he might be. “Were you a Jedi Master?” she asks, grinning to herself, her toes curling in her boots.  
  
“ _I was,_ ” he says, the amusement still present. “ _I was not known for being completely obedient to the Code, but I like to believe I did well by my Order. Perhaps._ ”  
  
Code. Order. The words alone send another rush through her. They make her think of another time and place, of people like Master Luke, in great quantities. Different people from dozens of races, bathed in the glow that was the Light side of the Force. She finds herself yearning for it, even though she knows so little about it. There were others like her, she knows. Others she might have been able to train with, find some camaraderie, a sense of belonging.  
  
She senses the ghost peering at her, although he still doesn’t appear. “ _I must ask though, Rey,_ ” he says, and she’s immediately alert. “ _Who sent you here?_ ”  
  
“My Master,” she replies. “His name is Luke Skywalker. He’s a very powerful Jedi. A hero.”  
  
Although it’s faint, she feels some kind of tension emanating from the ghost, a ripple of something that might be pain. But it’s gone in a breath, fading back into the tide that binds her and this ghost together. “ _I see. I can sense many things in this galaxy, and I have felt in the past, as with now, that there are so few of you. There is a darkness that spreads._ ”  
  
She knows what he’s talking about. The First Order, the Sith, the Empire. It has so many names, so many heads like some horrible beast that cannot be killed. The Dark side is just what it is, and even on Dagobah, she feels it pushing against the very edges of her awareness, insistent and cruel. It chases the Light, tries to snuff it out at every stray turn. She senses that the spirit of Qui-Gon Jinn understands this, as bright as he burns.  
  
“There was a massacre,” she explains, her eyes trained overhead. “All of Master Luke’s students were killed, he told me. Anyone who had promise.”  
  
“ _By one of his own,_ ” the spirit says, although he did not need to. They both know it.  
  
There is an image that sears across Rey’s vision, projected outward to the ghost. Darkness, and then ugly, burning red that highlights the steely edge of a mask. Anger boils, rage is the steam, fury pours forth. Then, the face of a man, eyes hot like embers, a bloody gash across his face, cauterized by the blade of a lightsaber. Malice and hatred metallurgically combine, and Kylo Ren is the result. Images dance after him, of Han Solo pierced with that terrible red blade, of Finn lying motionless in the snow, of Leia’s tear-streaked face and the warmth of her arms around Rey as they cry against each other.  
  
The images fade like coals to gray ash, and she feels nothing but utter sadness from the ghost.  
  
“ _History does have an unfortunate tendency to repeat itself,_ ” he says solemnly.  
  
Another image flickers in her mind’s eye. Red beams of a dual-bladed lightsaber, horrible red and yellow eyes set in a face of undulating patterns of black and red. One of the Sith, Rey knows, although this monster’s name is nothing but a whisper in the back of her mind. Then, she sees a young boy, his eyes bright and his grin wide. _Promise, so much promise_ , she hears.  
  
“Who was he?” she asks, although deep down, she knows the answer.  
  
And the answer comes in three different voices, two different names. Master Luke’s first, familiar and sagely, but so mournful. Kylo Ren’s voice, only in his mind, respectful but searing. They say the same thing, in two different tones:  
  
_Darth Vader._  
  
Then, quietly, careful as if stepping on stones crossing a river, Qui-Gon Jinn says, “ _Anakin Skywalker._ ”  
  
Rey feels a complicated collection of emotions at the response. There’s sadness that clenches at the base of her throat, up to the back of her head, edging her eyes in hot tears. There’s anger that burns acid-warm in her belly. And then there’s loss, independent of sorrow, an empty gaping wound in her chest. She wonders which of the three men that answered her felt each thing.  
  
She doesn’t say anything. There’s no need to.  
  
“ _I knew him once,_ ” Qui-Gon Jinn goes on. “ _He was a wonder, an anomaly. The possibilities really were endless with him. His mother told me he had been conceived from the Force itself, and I never had a reason to doubt it._ ”  
  
There is another wordless exchange between them, filled with images of that same boy, tagged with a huge variance of feelings. Stubbornness, pride, excitement, loss. Then, the images fade but Rey feels something come after, concealed in the Force itself. Faith in another, faith in a future yet unseen, faith that it wasn’t all for nothing.  
  
“ _I passed from that life believing in him,_ ” Qui-Gon Jinn says with finality. The Forces moves though him and Rey like a great heaving sigh. It isn’t disappointment, she knows. With it, however, she feels the spirit began to flicker away.  
  
“He did redeem himself, didn’t he?” she asks, perhaps a little too insistent. She doesn’t want this spirit to leave yet.  
  
“ _I suppose,_ ” is the reply, and although it isn’t unsure, it does sound resigned. “ _He was older by then, and the Dark side is powerful and cunning. There was so much of it in him._ ”  
  
“But it’s possible,” she says, more statement than question. “People can change, right?”  
  
“ _Those dedicated to the Light side have gone to the Dark before, Rey. They can change, but not always for the better,_ ” he says calmly, sounding much like a teacher.  
  
She sees Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker simultaneously in her mind. Both started so similarly, training under wise people, taught from a young age to do good, to take their strides in the Light, to avoid the encroaching Dark no matter how much power it promised. Both turned away from what they had been taught and chased the shadows.  
  
“ _You can also change,_ ” Qui-Gon Jinn reminds her, but not unkindly. It comes across like a lesson, from Master to Padawan.  
  
Before she can reply, she feels his spirit fade away, washed up in the Force’s unending tide. It doesn’t feel like that will be the last she hears of Qui-Gon Jinn, nor the last spirit that reaches out to her.  
  
\---  
  
The second ghost comes during her meditation one morning, almost a full week after Qui-Gon Jinn spoke to her. She sits cross-legged on the rocky outcropping, palms flat on her knees, willing away the itch of bug bites and the persistent drips of sweat on her face. There are dozens of distractions, and her mind is nothing but bumpy terrain. When she tries to hone in on the Force, some traitorous part of her agonizes that her breakfast isn’t settling well in her stomach and the rations are awfully bland. When she quiets those complaints, another pops up reminding her that her night was sleepless and she really should try to go back to sleep.  
  
Every time she silences one part of her, another appears with some grievance. It feels like an extremely annoying game of chase, and Rey is dangerously close to giving up after she feels a straining ache in her spine from her position.  
  
“ _Focus, you must. But focus, you do not do,_ ” a strange little voice says, and with it, a bright beam of light pours into her mind. Her eyes shoot open and standing before her, right at the edge of the rock, is a creature Rey has never seen before.  
  
He looks like a hologram, blue and fuzzy, and Rey has to glance over her shoulder to make sure S4-M1 isn’t projecting it. The droid is nowhere in sight, so Rey stares at him, mouth agape.  
  
He’s small in stature, hunched over like a little old man, one clawed hand resting on the head of a knobbly cane. He wears a dusty robe, not unlike one that Master Luke wears. His head is wide and squashed, enormous pointed ears sticking out on either side. He seems to sniff at her, his eyes half-lidded before he blinks slowly and nods. “ _But a novice, you are,_ ” he says, sounding very sure of himself in his odd creaky voice.  
  
“Who are you?” she asks, mentally patting herself on the back for keeping her voice stable.  
  
The creature surveys her before sighing and shaking his head. “ _Your Master only told you so much,_ ” he says.  
  
The realization comes all at once, and as a shock. A creature from Dagobah, strange and old and infinitely wise. His spirit is a beacon of light in the Force, and she has to marvel at it. “Yoda,” she breathes, wide-eyed and maybe a little light-headed.  
  
“ _Imagined this, you did not,_ ” he replies as an affirmation, and the amusement rolls off of him easily. “ _Not uncommon._ ”  
  
Rey has to ground herself, tether her mind so that she doesn’t start talking uncontrollably, asking him one of the hundred questions she has about him, the Jedi, Luke, and everything else that comes as a rush. It’s no small effort to dam the flow, and she ends up sitting on the rock, practically vibrating where she sits. Master Yoda, the one who taught her master and so many other Jed, stands before her as a ghost.  
  
Somewhere below her, S4-M1 gives a shrill shriek of frustration. Ghosts apparently baffle them.  
  
“I can’t believe this!” Rey exclaims, bunching her hands to fists beside her. The grin on her face is wide, and she leans forward as if trying to get a better look at him. “You’re Yoda! You’re... I’ve heard _so_ much about you from Master Luke. I mean, no, I didn’t know you would look like... I’m so sorry, I should have known and--”  
  
He silences her by raising his other hand, a peculiar smile on his face. “ _Understand, I do. And questions, you have many. But here, you train._ ”  
  
Her sorry excuse for meditation comes to mind, and her smile recedes into a frown. “Well, I’m trying,” she mutters. At the thought, she adjusts her position, but all it manages to do is shift the ache from her mid-back to her tailbone. “I don’t know if this is what Master Luke had in mind.”  
  
There’s a peculiar glint in Yoda’s eye and he slowly nods. “ _Trained on Dagobah, he did. Hm. Came here to seek training, to seek the Force. But focus, he had little._ ”  
  
That thought alone baffles her. Master Luke seems so focused and meditative that it’s hard to imagine him as anything but.  
  
There isn’t a doubt that Yoda reads her mind. He blinks slowly, nods again. “ _Luke Skywalker, young he once was. Inexperienced. Doubtful, yes. Quick to learn, but much like his father in ways, he was._ ”  
  
Rey tries to divine meaning out of that and she arrives at so many different conclusions that it just leaves her feeling confused. She thinks about the images Qui-Gon Jinn gave her of the young Anakin Skywalker with all of his potential and his energy, as well as the darkness that took root and grew inside of him. The image he left her is incomplete, but Rey believes she knows how the rest of the story goes. It’s not hard to imagine a similar darkness trying to make its way into Luke, but she finds it difficult to think of it overcoming him.  
  
_You can also change,_ she hears again, and the words chill her.  
  
“Can you help me, then?” she asks. “Train me like you trained him?”  
  
“ _Not like him, no. Similar, you are, but different. The same, it will not be,_ ” he replies, sounding just as old and tired as he looks. Like Qui-Gon Jinn before, his presence in the Force wavers. But then, he nods. “ _Help you, I may._ ”  
  
If she could hug him, she would, but there are infinite difficulties involved with hugging a Force ghost, tangibility being the biggest one. Instead, she sits there, all of her excitement returning like a cascade of pure energy. The magnitude is not lost on her, having Luke Skywalker as one master and Yoda as the other, and the promise of Qui-Gon Jinn closeby. It’s like nothing she could have imagined otherwise, and barely close to anything she could have come close to concocting by herself on Jakku. There’s so much she doesn’t know, but she feels that this is a fairly good start.  
  
“ _First, focus,”_ Yoda starts, and Rey snaps back to her original position, complete with her spine protesting. “ _Feel the Force, you must. Reach out to it, yes._ ”  
  
It’s one of the first real exercises she did, even before she met Master Luke. Her first step to it is always a rocky one, but it never fails. She imagines snow, trees sprawling black against an ash sky. A beam of raw starlight drawing deep into a great machine. The red of a lightsaber, the blue of another. Two clashing forces, Light and Dark, and the Force comes to her.  
  
It works its way into her from her toes to somewhere above her head, touching on certain points along the way. Her tailbone, gut, navel, chest, throat, forehead, and then that certain non-physical part of her mind. Once she feels it touch on every part, she allows herself to be enveloped by it. It draws her in, light and airy, but warm and deep. It settles into her bones, her muscles, her skin, every fiber and cell.  
  
In Yoda’s presence, the distractions do not come. She focuses on his beacon, his specific point in the great ocean that surrounds all of them, that reaches out past the stars they can see and out to the ones they cannot. Although he isn’t alive in one sense, he is a life, one of trillions or more. It feels as though she’s looking out at the sea in the dark, and the stars above reflect onto the surface below, and it’s endless. She’s just one microscopic part of all of it, hardly even a speck of dust in its grand scheme, but that doesn’t scare her.  
  
“ _Strong with you, it is,_ ” Yoda’s voice cuts in, but she doesn’t see him. She doesn’t see Dagobah either. She’s hardly even aware of her own physical body. There’s a glorious harmony rising around her, melodic and _so_ beautiful, and Rey just wants to listen to it forever. “ _What do you see?_ ”  
  
She tries to speak, but the words fade. Language seems just so insignificant where she is, surrounded by so much _eternity._  
  
But there is an interruption, a jagged red slice somewhere closer to her. She feels as if she’s honing in on something, flying past the endless stars, the galaxies, the dust clouds, down and deeper. The life forms are fewer as she filters through them. Animal, plant, spirit, and then...  
  
Her eyes snap open, her chest heaving and sweat dripping down her forehead and her neck. Dagobah comes back into view, as does Yoda’s ghost. Below them, S4-M1 says _danger_ with far more certainty. Dread crawls cold into the pit of her stomach.  
  
“Kylo Ren is here,” Rey says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr is [thisaway](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first thing, I am literally _astounded_ with the response this has gotten since last night. Like, legit, I've been badgering my roommate all day showing him the stats. You're all the bees' knees, and I would like to personally shower all of you with garbage kisses and invite you to tea in the trash compactor. Seriously. I'm kind of at a loss because this is so _awesome_.  <3333
> 
> Next, this chapter was edited the best I could, but in the true spirit of fanfiction, there's probably some mistakes. I'll go over it again in the morning (since it's midnight right now) and fix some stuff up, but any help would be much appreciated. I'm still on the hunt for a good beta, so we'll see how that goes. Canon corrections would be cool, too, since despite the fact I've been into Star Wars since age 4 (there used to be kissy marks on my TV screen from me going after Luke), I've missed a lot of stuff and there's lots of canon to go over. Bare with me during my education process. Gracias.
> 
> And lastly, next chapter's basic summary:
> 
> Rey voice: GET OUT OF ME SWAMP
> 
> Okay, enjoy. It's knitting circle hour in the garbage plaza and I'm not missing it.

The third ghost comes unexpectedly.  
  
\---  
  
Rey doesn’t hear what Yoda says after she comes to her realization. She’s on her feet in a second, her hand already on her lightsaber. S4-M1 has settled on a nervous chirping below and Rey can hear them already start back toward the X-wing, either expecting to leave or attempting to hide. She fights through her momentary panic to try to figure out his proximity, but it feels like there’s a wall in her way, too thick to pierce but just enough to understand that he’s nearby.  
  
She takes off in a sprint, slides down the outcropping, scraping her elbow in the process. It doesn’t deter her, and she runs as fast as she can towards the camp. Rey can’t tell if she’s afraid of him or afraid of the connotation of his arrival. She settles on a mixture between the two, despite the fact she’s defeated him once. The distinct crackle in the air tells her that he hasn’t gotten over it yet.  
  
S4-M1 isn’t too far ahead, and Rey catches up to them easily. The astromech whirs and chirps so quickly that it’s hard to understand, but Rey gets the gist. _Not good not good not good_ is the closest thing she can get to a proper translation. Rey’s inclined to agree.  
  
It only occurs to her once she’s within sight of the camp that using the Force to cloak her presence would be an excellent idea. It also occurs to her that going straight back to her camp wasn’t as much of a good idea. If Kylo Ren is here, then there’s an enormous chance that escaping with the X-wing will end in a fiery explosion if the First Order is at his back. That leaves her to cloak herself and disappear into the swamps of Dagobah, possibly outnumbered and on a planet that does not care if she’s a Jedi-in-training or not. If Kylo Ren doesn’t kill her, the monsters in the swamp might. That’s also not considering how long he’ll pursue her. Even if she does make herself disappear, she certainly can’t count on him giving up easily.  
  
She ducks under the roots of the gnarltree to catch her breath, trying desperately to hone in on that last bit of the Force she had captured with her meditation. It’s difficult, especially with S4-M1 panicking and trying to urge Rey to get into the X-wing, but somehow, she manages.  
  
Rey envisions herself where she stands, and then imagines her entire being disappearing like sand in the wind, filtering away grain by grain from her toes to her head. When she opens her eyes, she’s still standing there, but something’s different. S4-M1 twists their head back and forth, chirping a query.  
  
“ _Invisible, you are not,_ ” Yoda’s voice says, echoing from everywhere at once. Rey blinks and looks for him, but he’s just a tiny pinprick of light to her. She retreats further under the roots of the gnarltree and takes slow, steady breaths, trying to maintain what ever it is she’s done. “ _Concealed, you are. Those weak in the Force, see you not._ ”  
  
_That’s great,_ Rey thinks sardonically. _Kylo isn’t weak in the Force.  
  
_ “ _But hide from him, you do._ ”  
  
She may not be invisible to him, but it will be harder for him to find her.  
  
Rey debates on where she should go. She could hide in the X-wing’s cockpit, but there’s an enormous chance that he’ll look there, just as with the shelter of the gnarltree’s roots. It would be a death sentence in itself to run into the wilderness, as she figured before, but there could very well be a fate worse than death if she doesn’t.  
  
Her feet move on their own accord and she darts out from under the gnarltree and banks right, following a narrow path through the thick undergrowth and pools of stagnant water. Behind her, S4-M1 chirps shrilly and Rey resists every urge to hush the droid. Instead, she keeps running.  
  
“ _Use the Force to guide you,_ ” she hears, and the voice isn’t Yoda’s _or_ Qui-Gon’s. It’s one she hasn’t heard before. Another older man, wise and quiet. If Rey wasn’t fleeing for her life, she would try to hone in on it more.  
  
Her breath comes in heaves and the sweat is cold on her skin. In front of her is an endless foggy stretch of green and gray. Fear pulses hot, rattles her heart with waves of adrenaline. Rey feels the concealment of the Force slip away little by little.  
  
The old man’s voice returns, louder this time, as if he’s right behind her. “ _Rey, focus,_ ” he says, and it’s an order rather than a suggestion.  
  
It isn’t by her power alone that causes her to stop. There’s something else with her, this third ghost if she suspects correctly. She can’t see him, but she can hardly see anything at all with the fog as thick as it is. With every second, it gets more dense, and the world around her gets darker. She pants, turning every direction, trying to find what stopped her. There’s nothing but dark fog and jungle, but she isn’t alone.  
  
“ _Rey,_ ” the old man says, and it feels as if he’s standing directly in front of her. His presence his hard to grasp in her current state, but she feels it all the same. “ _Do not let fear be your guide. You are strong, stronger than you think. Focus, and the Force will do as you ask._ ”  
  
She wants to hide. She wants to be safe, and she wants Kylo Ren to leave Dagobah and never come back. Something tells her that only two of those things are options.  
  
_Hide me,_ she says in her mind, and she feels the Force move against her, lapping like waves over her feet. Once more, she’s sand in the wind, footprints on the beach at the mercy of the ocean, and little by little, she disappears.  
  
“ _Good._ ” The old man hasn’t left her, and she finds herself unexplainably grateful. “ _What else?_ ”  
  
_Keep me safe,_ she commands, and the Force changes its consistency. It is no longer wind or water. It’s raw earth, pushing against her as a tremor in the soil, leading her feet without her eyes to guide her. She moves effortlessly through the fog, stepping over branches, twigs, puddles, and rocks without seeing a single one. The Force moves in her and around her, and guides her downward. Her knees protest the slope she cannot see, until she feels... _  
  
Cold?_  
  
She opens her eyes, not realizing she had closed them at all, and finds herself in a hollow dug deep into the earth. Tree roots arch as a roof over her head, packed with dirt, and somewhere nearby, she can hear water rushing. As she asked, she feels safe, and the Force washes over her as if trying to assure her of the same.  
  
Now, she waits.  
  
In her concealment, she decides to assess the situation better. Rey doesn’t have to worry about being lost, as she has full faith that the Force will lead her back when the time is right. If it doesn’t, one of the three ghosts she’s met will probably be willing to help, or at least offer her some cryptic advice by way of a map. However, as before, she firmly doubts Kylo Ren will leave her be if he doesn’t find her within a day. She knows that he expects not to find her at her camp. It’s been a long time since they last met, so she can’t gauge how impulsive or temperamental he might be. He could very well have the potential to tear Dagobah apart if he so chooses. Honestly, she doesn’t know how much he’s put into finding her, but she assumes it’s no small effort.  
  
Her fists clench tight at her sides as she leans against the damp rocky wall of the cave, her breath evened out, but her chest straining.  
  
“ _I wouldn’t lose hope, Rey._ ” The old man’s voice returns, and Rey at least has the luxury now of reaching out to him. When she focuses, his presence is not as bright as Yoda’s, but it’s _clear_. Where some other presences are raw starlight, his is like a prism. She can almost see individual facets of it, turning and refracting the light of the Force in ways that astound her. He’s a powerful entity, and one entirely deserving of respect.  
  
“Who are you?” she asks, casting a glance around the narrow space of the cave. It’s dark, but in a way that makes her feel secure. This is not an unfriendly darkness. The Dark side has no power here.  
  
There’s a flicker before her, like the sprites of colorful flame above the swamps when evening comes, and it spreads to form a shape of a man. Like Yoda before, he’s cast in blue light, and it illuminates a tiny second of the cave. He’s a wizened old man, like she figured, but with an expression that’s almost parental. His beard is just past his chin and is the same silver-white of his hair, pushed away from his face. His eyes are bright, hardly betraying the fount of wisdom within him. He wears the robes of an old Jedi, a dark cloak around his shoulders. The smile he gives her is knowing and peaceful.  
  
“ _I am Obi-Wan Kenobi,_ ” he tells her, and Rey feels as if the entire galaxy just got completely tilted on its side. At least, that’s how she personally feels. Her knees hit the compacted dirt beneath her and she _stares_.  
  
Then, to take a page from some of the Resistance members she’s met and befriended, Rey says, “Holy _shit._ ”  
  
What’s more, Obi-Wan smiles at her, clears his throat like he’s fighting a laugh. “ _I’ve been watching your progress for some time, Rey. The Force is strong with you._ ”  
  
“You know me?” she asks, and she can’t help but feel beyond excited at the prospect.  
  
He nods, crossing his arms in front of him so the folds of his cloak hide his hands. “ _I felt your strength in the Force not long ago, and watched as Luke took you under his wing. It’s been so long since he took on a new apprentice. Far too long._ ” The way he says it is wistful and sad. He knows what happened, so she doesn’t have to say a word.  
  
Slowly, Rey gets back to her feet, flushed but eager to see him eye to eye. This is Master Luke’s teacher, Anakin Skywalker’s before him. She still knows so little about the history of their galaxy, but she’s learned enough to know that Obi-Wan has seen and done so many things, and the stories he could tell her could keep her occupied for literal days. She wants to hear them, after she heard Master Luke’s tales about what he remembered. Stories of this great Jedi concealed in the desert as a hermit, under a different name--  
  
_Ben._  
  
The name makes ice crawl frigid in her veins and she frowns, mimicking his gesture and crossing her arms over her chest.  
  
“Then you know about...” She trails off, as if saying _his_ name will somehow summon him.  
  
Again, he nods, and as solemn and sad as he seems, the kindness in his face doesn’t fade. “ _Ben Solo,_ ” he says, and Rey spares a quick glance around just in case. There’s nothing but the darkness and the blue glow of Obi-Wan’s ghost. He does take not of her gesture with a sigh, and it’s so similar to how Qui-Gon Jinn spoke of Anakin. “ _I saw it for myself, although it was long after my life was extinguished. I wanted to see how Luke and Leia fared, and so I saw the child. I tried to tell Luke of the darkness growing in him, but Luke... Well, Luke did try to see the best in most, in his nephew especially._ ”  
  
Like imagining Master Luke as young and brash, it’s hard for Rey to picture Kylo Ren as a child. The image of Ben Solo is unfocused, and she wonders if it’s an effect of him being in her mind before, dashing out that part of his identity from himself and from her.  
  
“What was he like?” she asks.  
  
“ _Oh, he had promise, of course. No grandson of Anakin would have anything less. He was enthusiastic and capable, and he absorbed things so quickly. His curiosity was strong, and I still wonder if that was, to a degree, part of his undoing._ ”  
  
She understands, as she remembers reaching into that part of his mind when he attempted to interrogate her. There, she saw the heat-melted mask of Darth Vader, like the charred remains of some grotesque monster. The emotions Kylo Ren associated with the mask were nothing short of reverent. It isn’t hard to imagine it started with him asking questions about his grandfather, and wanting to know more.  
  
_Why did he go to the Dark side? How powerful was he? Were people afraid of him?_  
  
Obi-Wan’s expression suggests he hears what she hears, this lingering memory shared between them, Obi-Wan’s from personal experience, Rey’s just picked up in passing.  
  
“ _And now, we have the result,_ ” the spirit says, glancing upward as if Kylo Ren stands above them.  
  
“If he finds me--” Rey starts, but Obi-Wan raises a hand to silence her.  
  
“ _Even if he does, I cannot say for certain that he will get what he wants._ ” He says it with such sureness that it almost sounds like a challenge. In turn, Rey wonders what a Force ghost could do to stop a person with so much of the Dark side roaring through him like the ferocity of a wildfire.  
  
Her doubts speak for themselves, and she almost misses the barest grin on Obi-Wan’s face. It’s conspiratorial, if she had to pick a word.  
  
“ _You’ve witnessed for yourself the power of the Force, and its strength flows powerfully though you, Rey,”_ he says. “ _There may be many things I am unable to do as I am, but I can at least assure you that there are also plenty of things I can do. The Force does not end with death._ ”  
  
This, she knows, at least inasmuch as three ghosts could prove to her. To their credit, they’ve done plenty in the short amount of time she’s seen them. Qui-Gon Jinn projected things to her telepathically, even though he didn’t appear himself. Yoda somehow allowed her to effortlessly hook onto the Force and eased her into the most perfect meditation she had ever been in. Obi-Wan Kenobi stopped her mid-run to teach her how to quell her fear, hide herself, and follow the Force to safety. These Jedi were certainly powerful in life, and it’s no stretch to assume this power continues into death.  
  
“What now?” she asks, not out of desperation, but instead as a legitimate question, asking for his counsel. “I mean, what can I do other than hide out in here? It’s not like he’s just going to give up.”  
  
“ _No,_ ” Obi-Wan concedes. “ _He won’t. But there is a reason that Luke chose Dagobah for your training. Others have been here before you, and each found that there are many unexpected things here._ ”  
  
For once, Rey would very much so enjoy if people would stop being cryptic to her. She sighs through her nose and resumes leaning up against the cave wall. “You’re not expecting me to go out there and say hello, are you?”  
  
Silence.  
  
She turns towards the spirit, frowning. He looks completely passive, perhaps thoughtful.  
  
“ _Are_ you?” she repeats.  
  
“ _You did leave your droid alone,_ ” he reminds her.  
  
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Master Jedi and teacher to at least two of the most powerful Jedi she knows of, is literally telling her to go face Kylo Ren, right after he helped her hide from him.  
  
As his specter fades, Rey thinks that living the rest of her life out in the cave suddenly seems far more appealing.  
  
\---  
  
It’s past nightfall by the time she finally musters the will to leave the cave. She hasn’t felt anything distinct in the Force that would suggest Kylo Ren is hellbent on his mission, but he could also be concealing as well, or something similar. Rey hardly expected this to be easy.  
  
The fog is still mercilessly thick when she leaves, but there’s a sense of relief that nothing is on fire and Dagobah isn’t any closer to being annihilated than when she woke up that morning. Still focusing on cloaking herself, she allows the Force to lead her back towards her camp. Foreboding and worry already begin to gnaw at her gut, but she refuses to allow fear to latch on. If she does have to meet him, she doesn’t want him to see her afraid. Still, cautiousness and fear aren’t completely connected, so she does unclip her lightsaber from her belt and clutches it tightly. She can be merciful, she knows, but she also will _not_ hesitate to either skewer him if he tries anything, or give him another scar to match the one she gave him on Starkiller.  
  
Tentatively, as she walks, she reaches out through the atmosphere of the planet, feeling uncannily like a predator stalking through the brush. She senses lifeforms both big and small. There are familiar ones, like the little reptiles that scurry across the rocks, and the larger ones that meander, the great life signatures of the strange large beasts that live in the waters, and stranger still are the creatures that literally _are_ the gnarltrees. Many are unperturbed, and no lives fizzle out unexpectedly. There is a silent status quo set in the darkness, and nothing has tipped it yet.  
  
Right when she thinks he’s either completely concealed himself or, unrealistically, left Dagobah, she feels an anomaly. It’s nothing like anything else on the planet. Neither swamp creature nor water beast, and certainly not one of the spirits that trail after her. He doesn’t appear as a beam of light, or even a flurry of starlight. She has to focus, but she sees him as a shapeless _something_ , undulating, alternating red-white-red-white in pattern with no rhythm. It’s so hard to concentrate, and his presence fades in and out. For a moment, she thinks he might be fighting for his life, but there’s something that breaks through to her.  
  
_Rage_.  
  
In an instant, she realizes that he has cloaked himself, but the cloak fades because he’s _furious_. She couldn’t have expected much else, she supposes, but it jars her all the same. It takes a good deal of courage to keep her from turning back to the safety of the cave.  
  
She can’t figure out how far away he is, so she walks slowly, sweeping out carefully to make sure he can’t jump out from behind her. Rey doesn’t push too far, in case he’s closer than she thinks. She refuses to let her cloak down, and concentrates on the short amount of teaching Obi-Wan gave her. Honestly, she wished her training was more honed, more specific, rather than some blocky commands, but she does the best she can given the situation.  
  
Rey continues to walk, slow step by slow step, the Force helping her retrace her path back to the camp. Nothing is out of the ordinary just yet, but the atmosphere grows more tense, and the fog refuses to abate.  
  
Then, she hears S4-M1, chirping and whirring in something like a whine. It’s not distress, Rey understands with relief. S4-M1 just sounds agitated at being left alone. In moments, she can make out their lights, and then the black silhouettes of the gnarltree shelter and the X-wing. The relief spreads once her camp is completely visible, and she wastes no time going to the droid, placing her hands on the cool chrome of their head.  
  
“Did anyone come here?” she asks, keeping her voice down.  
  
S4-M1 lets out one chirp that sounds like affirmation, twisting their head to get a better look at her, and then jerks to a stop. The next sound is one Rey certainly didn’t want to hear. A low, droning beep, one that Rey knows very well from the droids on Jakku. _We’ve got trouble,_ S4-M1 says.  
  
And to Rey’s horror, she realizes the connotation of S4-M1 being able to see her. Her cloak was dropped, more than likely out of relief.  
  
She feels him before anything else, the shapeless flashing _thing_ that he comes across as falls away little by little, like it’s simply being seared off. She feels heat, unbearably hot like molten metal, like a merciless sun on the desert. His anger is all flames, and they immediately reach out to her like she’s nothing more than dried kindling.  
  
“You dropped your guard,” is all he says, his voice altered by his mask. But the mask does absolutely nothing to conceal how he feels.  
  
Rey turns slowly, with S4-M1 letting out a worried chatter of beeps behind her. Nothing has changed about him since she last saw him with the mask on. He’s dressed like a shadow, and only the light of S4-M1 illuminates the ridges of his mask. She notices his lightsaber is in his hand, but not ignited. His stance certainly suggests that he’s more than prepared to fight her.  
  
She takes one step back, but knows that other than S4-M1, there’s only a pond of water there. For all she wanted to escape, and as well as she did, it hasn’t exactly worked out.  
  
Neither of them speak for the longest, tensest moment. She can feel him already pushing at her mind, slowly at first, and then progressively harder. She merely pushes back, sending the message that they’ve already done this before, and nothing’s changed on that front.  
  
“Oh, things have changed,” he says, his voice schooled so it comes across as casual. “You have, haven’t you? Training to be a Jedi, right?” It doesn’t escape her that he sounds so _mocking_. With a jolt, she wonders if he sounded like this before he massacred Luke’s trainees.  
  
“You don’t seem so different,” she replies, trying desperately to keep the tremor out of her words.  
  
She’s met with a short, sharp laugh, completely humorless. He takes one long step towards her, and she’s unable to take a step back. Without a second thought, she ignites her lightsaber, bathing both of them in eerie blue light. It makes her think of the three Jedi ghosts she met, and she wonders if they’re nearby, if they can help her at all.  
  
“I don’t seem so different,” he echoes, and she can hear his sneer without having to see it. His lightsaber comes to life beside him, just as she remembers it. The blade crackles with unstable energy, and she thinks that there may very well come a day where it malfunctions completely. Very suitable to its owner, she muses.  
  
He seems to catch that thought and takes another step, until he’s looming too close. She angles herself into a defensive posture, immediately recalling all the forms she was coached through. Her mind must be wide open, more than she thought, because he laughs again. “Of course you’ve been training with him,” he says. Then, angrily, “Let’s see if you learned anything.”  
  
He’s on her in less than a second, static red filling her vision and she’s just barely able to block it. She takes a wide side-step to her left, giving her some space to back up, and he concedes. As soon as their positions change, he goes in for an all-out assault. Their blades clash over and over, the buzzing sound is all Rey hears, and then the crackle of his erratic blade. She continues to block every swipe and strike. He’s completely on the offensive, so much so that his attacks aren’t as precise as they could be, less focused on his form and more focused on some deeper more primal need to _win_. Rey doesn’t need to wonder why he feels this way.  
  
In contrast, she’s almost purely defensive. Master Luke noted that it’s worked out well for her, that she could wear her opponent out if need be, and then switch over to something more on the offense. While mastering a particular form hasn’t been in her immediate future, she’s favored the Soresu form, figuring she would be meeting more blasters in combat than lightsabers. It’s the form that allows her to best get a feel for what she’s fighting, and in this case, it lets her see Kylo Ren’s intentions better, and his style of fighting.  
  
Another benefit of the Soresu form is that it allows her to speak.  
  
“What are you after?” she demands, blocking another wide-arcing strike aimed for her side. When he does that, she notices that he guards his, where he was hit back on Starkiller. He turns tightly toward it, keeping his hip angled away from her.  
  
He strikes again, this time above her head, and then quickly tries to follow it up with an attempted clip to her shoulder. She blocks both fairly easily.  
  
“ _You_ ,” he snarls, following it up with quick, successive strikes toward her torso. One comes close enough that she feels the heat of his blade close to her side. She parries it, twists his blade away and sends him careening back a few steps.  
  
He readjusts his stance and she glares at him, both hands tight on the hilt. “Are you trying to kill me or are you trying to kidnap me again?”  
  
Half of his answer is the wild, frenzied attacks he rains on her. She’s forced to retreat several steps, her breath already coming in shorter and shorter with each block.  
  
_Form VII_ , her mind supplies in the voice of Master Luke. _Juyo._ _There’s no emotion to it. Just butchering. Not many Jedi ever tried it._  
  
That seems to be the case, as each strike is erratic, fast, and brutal. She blocks one strike at just the right angle to cause his lightsaber to score the earth near her feet, leaving a smoking black mark.  
  
The other half of his answer is actually spoken, or more accurately, shouted. “I don’t care what happens here!” he yells, and it’s distorted into static by his mask. “If you die, if I get you alive, it doesn’t matter!”  
  
Apparently, he’s more fond of the former option of her being killed. What ever happened to him between Starkiller and now has turned him into something far worse than she expected.  
  
Worse still, he doesn’t seem to be tiring, and she _is._ Her arms are beginning to ache with the strain of blocking each powerful strike. She knows she has to switch to the offensive soon, like she did on Starkiller, but then it’s a matter of finding an opening in the deluge of his attacks.  
  
_“Make one,_ ” she hears Obi-Wan say. “ _You know you can. You’ve done it before._ ”  
  
The Force guided her before, and it gave her an opening when she needed it the most. Same enemy as before, and his tactics have changed, but her options are thin. All she needs is a little time, and a lot more faith than she thinks she has. She draws in a deep breath during a short pause between his attacks, and then charges forward, using the difference in their heights to duck underneath a wide swing of red and elbow him hard somewhere near his diaphragm. As soon as she makes contact, she leaps back and watches him stumble backwards. It buys her almost no time, but _almost_ is good enough.  
  
The Force meets her halfway, runs though every particle of her until she feels like a livewire, hot and dangerous. In an instant, she’s one with it, and it’s more than adrenaline. It’s more than any shot of chemicals or any meditation can give her. There’s nothing in the galaxy like it, and for this small window of time, she can literally do _anything_. She feels like she’s glowing with it, as bright and brilliant as the hottest star.  
  
She charges at him again, yelling as she does so, and blocks him effortlessly. This time, instead of drawing back, she spins away from him, to his right and her left, and rather than strike him, she tackles him. He’s sent reeling, quickly trying to regain his balance, but she’s there before he can move again. Her knee rams into his side, her lightsaber now a breath away from his neck, and her other arm twisting to get his right hand into a lock. Before she knows what she’s doing, her arm moves seemingly of its own accord and she hears a terrible _crack_. Kylo Ren makes a strangled noise behind his mask and she hears his lightsaber hit the ground.  
  
Now it’s just the two of them, her lightsaber poised to swiftly decapitate if need be. He’s disarmed, and if she’s heard right, his wrist is broken.  
  
“ _Yield!_ ” she yells.  
  
He doesn’t make a sound, and part of it may very well be from the pain.  
  
However, there was no way it was going to be that easy.  
  
His left hand shoots straight for her neck before she can think on it, black leather digging in tight against her skin. The ridge between his thumb and index finger is right on her trachea, fully intent on crushing it. Rey, on the other hand, is not fully intent on dying. She beseeches the Force to give her one last push, and it does so, in the form of her foot making sound contact with his lower abdomen, right below his diaphragm. It’s a harder kick than she thought, as he hits the ground with such force that she hears his helmet thump against the dirt.  
  
Rey isn’t one to rest on her laurels, so she quickly moves over, one boot square on his chest, the other angled so her heel hovers just above his broken wrist for sake of leverage. The tip of her lightsaber is just under his chin, poised above his throat.  
  
“Yield or you’re dead!” she shouts.  
  
He’s soundless again, but he stays that way. No noise, no movement. She doesn’t budge in case he’s trying to bait her, yet nothing happens. She presses down on his chest with her boot, and it doesn’t elicit a reaction, so she reaches out with her mind, slipping into his _too_ easily.  
  
“Oh, _shit_ ,” she says, and Poe would be proud of her.  
  
She’s knocked Kylo Ren unconscious, and now she has no idea what to do with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr's still [here](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com). I like talking to you guys. 
> 
> You're free to imagine Rey kicking Ren in the balls and knocking him out. Go ahead. Make your dreams come true.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time, but only a little. The next one is full of fun and family bonding and a road trip! A nice fun road trip that doesn't involve angst or tears or pent-up aggression! Hahaha, yaaaay!
> 
> Don't forget to sign up for the trash compactor's raffle this week. This week's prizes include an old sink, dirty underwear, and a lifetime supply of 50 year old rations! Wooo!
> 
> (Also prepare for tense interrogations and our lovely contestants beating the shit out of each other again. That's fun.)
> 
> (And prepare for me loving all of you oh my god what did I do to deserve you <3333)

Rey’s absolute adversary and enemy is at her mercy, disarmed, injured, and unconscious, and Rey literally has no idea what to do with him. It’s been gnawing at her for hours, and the conundrum has kept her awake well into the dark hours. By the time dawn comes with a fresh layer of rain, she still has no idea what to do.  
  
The most she’s done is used some cables from the X-wing to bind his arms and legs, and then propped him up against the tree. She locked his lightsaber in one of the cargo crates, although she doubts one little crate is going to stop him from getting it if he really wants it. But it’s better than nothing, and considering her options, it’s not bad. Other than that, she’s at an enormous impasse, and all she can do is will him to stay unconscious until she can get her next course of action mapped out. Sleep deprivation certainly isn’t helping, and it results in one of her final ideas being to just toss him into the swamp water and let him rot in it.  
  
That’s not helpful. Nothing really is. One of the biggest issues is the fact she’s on _Dagobah_. There’s no rebel base even remotely close. Even though the planet itself isn’t aligned with the Dark side, she’s still quite alone in this quiet corner of the galaxy. Theoretically, she _could_ call someone. The X-wing has a good communicator on it, and it would take no effort to hail a ship like the Millennium Falcon, or even someone particular like General Organa or Finn. Even Poe would be a decent option, _if_ calling them was an option at all.  
  
The hardest part about having Kylo Ren here, aside from him being himself, is that she doesn’t know who he came with. There’s no other specific life forms on Dagobah like them, so he probably came on his own, but there’s little way for her to tell who is at his beck and call. She can try to reach out past the planet’s atmosphere and feel for the hovering masses of destroyers, but they could also be cloaked, and she might not have the energy for that. If she tries to call anyone in the Resistance, it could be intercepted, and everything could go badly in record time. On the other hand, it could go right, but the risk is monumental. Kylo Ren’s allies are powerful and the definition of deadly. Rey has no intention of being killed, captured, or responsible for the annihilation of the planet she sits on.  
  
The other thing is that she has the most awful advantage at that moment. She’s armed still, and throughout her sleepless night, she’s gripped her lightsaber so tight that it hurts. It would be so easy to just _kill_ him. It wouldn’t even be a gory affair. Just a spear move right through the chest, or a swift decapitation, and lots of problems would be solved. An even more vindictive part of her suggests that it’s the _least_ he deserves after everything he’s done.  
  
But she _can’t_. She doesn’t want to. It’s an unfair advantage, although there’s certainly the irony there of being fair to _him_. He has no way to defend himself, and Rey can’t do it.  
  
Therein lies the impasse. Her enemy, the man who hurt and nearly killed Finn, tortured Poe Dameron, killed his own father, ordered execution after execution, and allowed the order to destroy several planets and all their inhabitants, is at her mercy. Her problem is she has _too_ much mercy. She’s toyed with so many ideas, and none of them come to fruition, save for just leaving him tied up.  
  
Aside from tying him up, she hasn’t touched him otherwise. She briefly mused on the thought of taking off his mask, but she would have to see him face-to-face, possibly still gouged and scarred from their last battle. That’s not something she’s ready for yet. She also considered fetching her medical kit from one of the crates and at least binding his wrist, but that would mean _helping_ him. Rey reasons with her vindictive side. _Let him suffer, a little._ If he can, he’ll have to fix it himself, as well as the ribs she may have broken.  
  
The only other thing she does is sweep over his mind once in awhile, to assess how unconscious he really is. For the entire night so far, he hasn’t even dreamt. It’s so deep and dark that Rey momentarily wonders if she might have knocked him too hard, if the sheer power of the Force flowing through her somehow wiped his brain entirely.  
  
_Not necessarily the worst thing that could happen,_ she thinks to herself.  
  
That doesn’t end up being the case, she finds out in the morning. After the rain starts, she gives another customary sweep and finds some activity, like a dream slowly fading in. His mind gives a weak push against her, more out of instinct than something he’s doing consciously, and that’s it. She backs off, but keeps an eye on him, her lightsaber still ready.  
  
\---  
  
Darkness.  
  
Endless, all-encompassing darkness.  
  
It should be comforting, as he’s devoted so much time and energy to becoming one with the Dark side. Now that it surrounds him on all sides, he just feels uncomfortable and restless. It bothers him, like an itch that darts around under his skin, impossible to scratch. He wants to get out of it, but it feels like he’s trying to swim to the other end of an ocean, with no shoreline in sight.  
  
It feels like an eternity passes before anything changes, and even then, it’s so small and so dim that it almost doesn’t register. Something else is out there, some fleeting thing or sensation or... he doesn’t know. As deep as he is, it’s impossible to tell what’s going on, and it irritates him immensely. He’s so used to feeling things in the Force at all times, having constant awareness of the world around him and the world beyond. Here, it feels like everything’s been blocked, shrouded, and hidden away. When he gets that small scrap, that barest little flash of something other than darkness, he clings to it, pulls on it so that he can get a better look.  
  
What he wasn’t prepared for was that thing to be _pain._  
  
Oh, he’s used to pain. He wouldn’t be who he is without it. It’s forged metal bones inside of him, replacing his fragileness. It’s been a disciplinary thing as much as an educational thing.  
  
It’s just _this_ pain. He can’t find the source of it, so it feels like it’s everywhere. He can’t even tell _what_ kind of pain it is. Thousands of needles or endless bruising or fire or the flaying of skin. There’s no way to separate it from the things he knows, so it ends up being an awful torture. He can’t let go of it, either, or else he’ll just fall back into the darkness.  
  
_Pain is awareness. Nothing wrong with that,_ something says. He doesn’t know the voice he hears it in. It’s no one he’s ever heard before.  
  
Kylo can’t respond. His mouth feels like it’s been scorched, and his throat is faring worse. He just bares it best he can.  
  
“ _Not like you didn’t deserve it,_ ” the voice says, clearer this time. It actually sounds like someone, although there’s still no familiarity. It sounds teasing, maybe a little mocking. If Kylo was more himself, he would berate whoever this person is, maybe choke them for good measure. As it stands, however, he feels like he’s getting choked and berated.  
  
“ _Oh, what’s that phrase... ‘A taste of your own medicine’? Yeah, that’s right. Doesn’t feel too good in the long run, huh?_ ”  
  
He’s got some choice words for this _thing_ , whatever it is. Unfortunately, as well-chosen as they are, he can’t say any of them.  
  
“ _I should know,_ ” it goes on, and for the first time so far, Kylo feels some of the pain changing. Not abating, exactly, but he can tell what’s what now. There’s a bruising ache in his abdomen, sore and hot and brittle. A worse one in his right wrist, and focusing on it just makes it feel like lightning lancing white-hot up his arm. And there’s a pounding in his head, steady and unrelenting, radiating from the back of his skull.  
  
After he takes stock fully, he tries to recollect what happened to him to put him in such a state.  
  
_The girl_. He remembers her ill-gotten blue lightsaber, the way the Force flowed around her like a second skin. It makes his stomach churn and if his wrist wasn’t in terrible condition, he would clench his fists.  
  
“ _She beat you soundly,_ ” the voice interjects, sounding so pleased that it infuriates him. “ _Fair and square. Maybe she did fight dirty, just a little, but it was a good match._ ”  
  
Kylo wants to tell the voice to shut up and leave him alone, but pain and exhaustion keep him from saying a word. Instead, he makes a noncommittal grunting noise and tries to move. It still feels like he’s mentally wading through the ocean, but the resistance is less. There’s something else there now, easier to grip onto. A small trickle of light, like a hole in a canvas, allowing the rain through. He attempts to assess it, and finds that it’s not the dull pain from before. It’s _someone_.  
  
He firmly grasps at it, and he hears a yelp.  
  
\---  
  
Rey doesn’t expect the mental jerk that she gets, like someone’s grabbed her by the front of the tunic and yanked her. All she had been doing was giving another sweep, testing the waters a little more. But Kylo Ren is awake this time, and her sweep snags on him. It surprises her more than anything, pulling a surprised ‘ah!’ from her as she reels back onto her bedroll. Outside, near the X-wing, S4-M1 gives a worried chirp.  
  
She watches as he finally moves, just a slight stirring. Almost immediately, he freezes, obviously aware of his bindings. He doesn’t turn his head, but Rey can tell he’s looking at her.  
  
“Unbind me,” he demands, although the exhaustion is audible even through his modulator. When she doesn’t get up, he does turn to face her completely. “I said--”  
  
“I heard what you said, and no, I won’t,” Rey responds, sounding more confident than she feels. Her lightsaber is a comfortable weight in her hand, and his is on the other side of the camp.  
  
He just barely moves his hands, but she can tell the exact moment when his wrist hurts him because he jerks and breathes out heavily through his mask. Regardless of how tired he might be, anger rolls off of him in waves. “You will regret this,” he says it what apparently is a threat. How threatening he can be with multiple broken bones and a probable headache is questionable. Then again, people weren’t so terrified of him for nothing.  
  
“As much as you’re regretting it now, I assume.”  
  
“Don’t sound so cocky, sand rat,” he shoots back, but most of the venom is drained out. “One win doesn’t make you better than me.”  
  
“Two,” she corrects. “Starkiller, remember?”  
  
If looks could kill, his visor would have melted right out of his mask and he would be glaring holes into her.  
  
“Besides, I’m the one with the lightsaber right now,” she goes on, hefting it a little so it’s presented like a trophy in front of him. She feels him try to pull on it, but she’s a bit quicker.  
  
“You took mine,” he accuses.  
  
The grin comes to her face before she can fight it back. “Scavenger?” she says lightly, gesturing to herself.  
  
Broken bones may be the only thing keeping him from thrashing in anger. Although, she reminds herself that he used a blaster shot wound to keep himself focused. She may have made a little bit of a mistake on that front, but he’s not fighting the cables just yet.  
  
“The second you drop your guard...” he says as a warning. A sharp pulse in the Force is the rest of the sentence.  
  
“I already dropped my guard once, didn’t I? If I do it again, do I get to break your other wrist?”  
  
So maybe, _just_ maybe, egging him on isn’t the wisest thing she’s ever done. The man is concentrated rage at the best of times, and an out of control wildfire at the worst. She knows that compared to others he’s met, he treated her fairly well, which is saying something. Attempting to torture her for information isn’t something she’s keen on forgetting, but she refuses to use it as a crutch. She just knows that there’s a very fine line between his apparent _benevolence_ and everything else, and she must be toeing it. Rey also reminds herself that his _malevolence_ is capable of wiping out planets and slicing people to shreds.  
  
“You’re intolerable when you get a victory,” he grinds out. “I’d hate to see how you act when you actually accomplish something. Which, given your history, must not happen very often.”  
  
He’s waiting for her to slip up. Fortunately, she’s already steeled herself to most of that concept.  
  
“Listen,” she clips. “We’re at an impasse, and flinging insults isn’t going to get us out of it. You’re my prisoner, as it stands, and there’s a handful of things I could do to you right now if I knew the score a bit better.”  
  
It strikes her that this is an interrogation, and somewhat similar to the one he had tried to perform before. This time, he’s the one bound and being questioned. At the thought, she tries to strengthen the defenses around her mind.  
  
It doesn’t escape him either. “Last time, you wanted my mask off when we did this.” If he wasn’t so angry, he might sound amused.  
  
“I’m not untying you.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to.”  
  
She knows traps when she sees them, and this feels uncannily like a trap. “No,” she says firmly, even going as far as crossing her legs on the bedroll.  
  
“What am I going to do, bite your hand off?”  
  
“With you, I’m not sure.”  
  
He scoffs, literally _scoffs_. “You really are uncivilized.”  
  
“Says a mass murderer.”  
  
She feels him prickle at that, and then calm himself. “I’m letting you interrogate me,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing each word with care. “Like you said, you have the lightsaber.”  
  
It still feels like a trap, but Rey gets up anyway, slowly walking toward him with one hand clenched tight around the hilt of her saber. He doesn’t move, and aside from his natural mess of hatred and ill will, she doesn’t feel him plotting or preparing. S4-M1 gives a low whistle outside. _Watch yourself._  
  
She crouches down in front of him, seeing her reflection dim in his visor. Then, with the lightsaber’s belt ring around her thumb, she reaches in front of her and unhooks the mask the way she saw him do it before. It’s a surprisingly heavy weight in her hands, and she wonders if that’s the point. It’s a burden, and she’s eager to put it on the ground and back away from him as quickly as she can. She does so, being met with a face she hasn’t seen in months.  
  
And quite frankly, he looks _awful._  
  
His hair is matted and messy, sticking to his face in a few places. There’s dark circles under his eyes, and his skin is even more pale than it was before. He seems to have lost weight since their last meeting, his cheekbones are more pronounced his cheeks more hollow. Rey barely contains a wince when she sees the scar across the right side of his face, silver and raised against the rest of his skin.  
  
His eyes are more black than brown as they regard her. “They almost didn’t fix it in time,” he says, and she feels her chest tighten at his words. “See, they _might_ have, except we were down a few supplies.”  
  
Because the base was an enormous fireball. He certainly doesn’t need to say that, and the evidence is literally written across his face.  
  
“I’m not sorry,” she says coldly.  
  
“I know you’re not,” he replies. “But this interrogation isn’t about physical features, is it? Otherwise I’d have to point out how filthy you are.” She watches his eyes travel up and down her form, and the urge to punch him reaches a record high level.  
  
“No, it’s _not_ about physical features. Because if it was, I’d like to point out how you look _terrible._ ”  
  
“Good thing it isn’t.”  
  
Rey sits back down on the bedroll and glares at him, and he seems all to keen to return the favor. “First things first,” she says, ice already crawling into her voice. “Why are you really here? Was it to capture me?”  
  
“I told you yesterday.”  
  
“You tried to kill me yesterday.”  
  
The corner of his mouth quirks, but it fails at making it look like he’s smirking. Instead, it looks like a grimace. “It might have been a benefit if I succeeded.”  
  
“So you came all the way to Dagobah just to kill me?”  
  
“Or capture you. Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter.” His words sound hollow, and Rey quickly understands that they belong to someone else and he’s just repeating them. Apparently, he chose to hone in on the ‘dead’ part of the order.  
  
That means that someone other than Kylo is after her. She didn’t figure herself to be any more important after they couldn’t pry the information about Luke from her. Unless she’s being captured because she _trained_ with Luke, but even then, what could they get out of her that they couldn’t get by capturing the _Falcon_ and reading its flight logs, or catching someone else from the Resistance privy to that information? It would have been far easier than sending Kylo Ren to a desolate swamp planet.  
  
This time, he does smirk, but there’s no humor in it, and she realizes he’s been reading her mind. “You catch on quickly,” he says, and it’s hardly a compliment.  
  
“This isn’t about politics, is it?” she asks, leaning forward so that her elbows rest on her knees. “It’s personal interest.”  
  
“That makes it sound affectionate.”  
  
Something cold and nauseating settles in her stomach and her gaze hardens. “No more or less affectionate than you killing Han Solo. That was technically a personal interest, wasn’t it?”  
  
She knows that she’s hit a mark in him, because the smirk turns into a snarl. “That was necessary,” he snaps.  
  
The vision comes unbidden, and she momentarily relives that moment on the balcony, watching Kylo Ren impale his father on that heinous red blade he calls a lightsaber. In her vision, she watches as both of them are swallowed up in darkness.  
  
“Was it?” she asks, her throat tight and her words strained. Han’s loss is one that she’s yet to fully recover from, even for the short time they knew each other. She knows it’s palpable, it’s something Kylo can feel, and the way he jerks his head to pointedly look away from her is when she knows he senses it.  
  
“You’re foolish to think that you could possibly understand any of this,” he says, his words as hot as hers are cold.  
  
“I’m asking you to explain it!”  
  
“You would know,” he says, all trained steadiness and restrained fury. “If you would give yourself over the Dark side, you would know why I’ve done what I have.”  
  
“And why would I?” she demands angrily, both feet suddenly on the ground. “If it means killing people that care about you, or killing people you don’t even _know_ without giving them a chance, then why would I do that? The only thing that I see of it is just... _you!_ ”  
  
She hears S4-M1 make a panicked shrill whistle before Kylo even moves. There’s a loud hissing noise, then a crackle of bright red before the cables literally _melt_ away from him. All that’s left of them is mangled metal, twisted beyond repair. She doesn’t get any time to understand what he’s done, because he’s in front of her, his good hand back on her neck like before, clenching like a vice around her throat. His pupils are blown wide as he glares at her, his teeth clenched, the muscles in his neck straining.  
  
“You know _nothing_!” he shouts at her, and aside from her airway being painfully cut off, she can feel his arm trembling. She tries to draw air in, but he’s strangling her with the complete intent of killing her.  
  
Rey can’t speak, can’t do anything but drop her lightsaber and attempt to pry his hand away. Black dots already fill her vision, and her head feels like it’s pounding. Her lungs burn, her heart pounds so hard that it hurts. All she can think is _help_ , but like before, when the sands of Jakku seemed to burn the most, she believes that no one is going to come. Kylo Ren is going to kill her to further himself into the Dark side.  
  
Her vision is almost completely faded, so much so that she almost doesn’t see a ghostly blue glow. She barely hears a sharp _crack_ , but she does hear Kylo howl in pain. The hand on her throat leaves and she draws in the deepest breath she can, gasping and coughing so hard that fluid fills her mouth. Her vision comes back a little at a time, enough to see a mass of black on the dirt and the glowing blue figure of a ghost standing over it. The ghost turns to face her, and after her vision stops swimming and settles, she sees that it’s no one she’s met yet. This isn’t Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, and certainly not Yoda. His presence in the Force is wider, fuller, a raging sun where a small star would be. Whoever he is, he’s immensely powerful, like no one she’s met before.  
  
He’s older than her, but not by much. His hair is dark and long, his eyes full of a wisdom far older than him. The grin he gives her is both cocksure and knowing. All he does is nod to her before looking down at the man at his feet.  
  
“ _That’s unfortunate,_ ” the ghost says. “ _I didn’t want to have to interfere too much._ ”  
  
“Th-thank you,” she manages, her voice hoarse. Tentatively, she rubs her neck, wincing and knowing there will be a bruise there later.  
  
The ghost nods again and then nudges Kylo with his boot. Surprisingly, it’s a physical nudge. “ _He’s alive,_ ” he says, prodding a bit more. “ _I wouldn’t have been as merciful as you._ ”  
  
“I...” Rey pauses, coughing again, before reaching down at her side and picking up her lightsaber. The ghost glances at her, then down to the weapon, before grinning again.  
  
“ _Really? That old thing’s still around? I thought they’d say it was bad luck and melt it._ ”  
  
This time, the realization hits her harder than it did for Yoda and Obi-Wan.  
  
A powerful presence in the Force. Saying he wouldn’t have been merciful. Recognizing the lightsaber.  
  
The fourth ghost is Anakin Skywalker.  
  
Rey doesn’t know if it’s the shock or oxygen deprivation that finally does it. All she sees is the ghost of Anakin Skywalker frown at her before the whole world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr's [in that field over yonder](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com).
> 
> Hey, look how psychic you all are! Anakin's hanging around and still kicking ass, including his own grandson's. 'Swawesome.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, holy _shit_ you guys are fantastic. Like, the reaction to the last chapter was awesome and maybe a wee bit overwhelming and I'm seriously hoping that you guys like this one because woaaaaahhhhh. There is not enough space in this trash compactor for all the love I wish to give you. I'll try my bestie-bestest, though.  <3
> 
>  
> 
> ~~And who's ready to see Kylo get grandfather'd? Whatever that means. I bet it's you.~~

Rey dreams of Jakku.  
  
She’s scavenging parts in the belly of the _Inflictor_ , the noonday heat of the desert repressed inside the engineering bay so that it’s just a dry coolness. Her hands work on their own accord, accustomed to the same tasks that they’ve done for years. She knows which wires to tug, what bolts to unscrew, and piece by piece, her bag fills. Caught in her droning work, she thinks about how many portions she’s going to get. The amount seems to lessen over time, and more often than not, she’s gone to sleep feeling like there is a hole in her stomach.  
  
Then, she’s back at her home, her back to the day-warmed metal of the AT-ATs leg, watching the dome of the stars curve over her. She knows each constellation and every story that goes with them. When she was younger, sometimes she made up stories about them. In the current sky, she sees the Priest, two hands stretched up high, pointing directly to the Hooded Lady. The constellation of the Dagger is near her feet. With one eye closed, Rey reaches up and air-traces the three constellations before sighing and leaning her head back against the metal.  
  
And then she’s in the middle of the endless desert, ochre dunes rising up on all sides. The heat is unbearable, the sun harsh on her back, every drop of sweat on her skin is a waste of precious water. Water than she doesn’t have. Her throat burns, her mouth opens, her chapped lips split. There is nothing but sand.  
  
She wakes with a start, jerking upright too quickly and giving her a short spell of vertigo. Her stomach rolls in protest and her head swims. Slowly, with a groan, she lays back down. With relief, she sees the dark expanse of the gnarltree above her. The rain comes with a soft hiss and the gentle sound lures her back to a more restful state.  
  
Until she remembers why she was unconscious at all. Her eyes open again and she looks around, but finds no sign of Kylo or the ghost. S4-M1 is ducked under the X-wing, keeping out of the rain. Other than them, there’s no one else.  
  
Carefully, she reaches out in the Force, cautiously optimistic. What she expects to find, she’s not sure. He’s nowhere close, so lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.  
  
“ _You won’t need to worry about him for a little while._ ” Obi-Wan’s voice fills her head and makes her nearly jump off the bedroll. Appropriately, S4-M1 lets out a surprised squeal.  
  
“What happened?” Rey asks, working her nerves back down to a manageable level. She takes a few deep breaths for good measure before glancing around to try to spot the ghost. He appears on the edge of the swamp to the right side of the camp, the rain passing through him but not disturbing the specter. Rey stays huddled under the tree.  
  
Obi-Wan’s expression is mixed, and the only word Rey has for it is ‘resigned’. He doesn’t seem _pleased_ , but he’s not angry. He folds his hands in front of him and passively stares ahead at the X-wing. “ _My apprentice took care of it. He... interfered._ ”  
  
“That’s a bad thing?” Rey asks, and the soreness around her neck begs to differ if that’s the case.  
  
“ _No,_ ” he concedes. “ _I am grateful he did what he did, for your sake. His methods were crass, to say the least._ ”  
  
Rey immediately recalls the sharp crack she heard before Kylo yelled in pain. She wasn’t aware enough to tell what had been broken. Obi-Wan looks at her, obviously reading her mind.  
  
“ _Anakin gave him an arm to go with his wrist,_ ” he answers.  
  
If Rey felt even a measure of sympathy for Kylo, she would wince on his behalf. However, given how he acted before she went unconscious, she can’t help but feel a little vindicated. She would probably thank Anakin if he were there.  
  
“ _Revenge isn’t the best path to follow, Rey,_ ” Obi-Wan reminds her, and Rey sighs through her nose. There will come a day where she speaks to someone and half the conversation isn’t in her head. He goes on, regardless. “ _You are angry at Kylo Ren, I know. It’s hard to avoid these feelings, especially given what he’s done. But clinging to your anger is a sure path to the Dark side._ ”  
  
“I know that,” Rey replies, but she doesn’t feel it the way she should. Despite her meditation and her lessons, anger has been nearly constant in her since the attack on Takodana. There, it was planted alongside fear, and it blossomed to full rage when he interrogated her. He said it himself, that she wanted him dead. That feeling hasn’t abated, and if she has to admit it to herself, it may have actually grown since he came to Dagobah.  
  
Obi-Wan definitely sees that in her, and his expression changes to a sort of knowing exhaustion. He’s gone through this gauntlet before, that much is obvious. “ _You know it, but you do not put it into practice. That was the downfall of so many before you. It was Anakin’s downfall, and it is becoming his grandson’s as well._ ”  
  
“I won’t let it control me,” she says, although there’s still a bitter sting somewhere deep down. She has to be honest to herself, she knows. She won’t do what Ben Solo did to their Master. “I... I’ll meditate today. I’ll do _something._ ”  
  
He regards her, his face composed to neutrality. But she feels like he gives her a pass, allows her to move on past the conversation, at least for a moment. “ _Eat first. Freshen up. You’ve been through quite a bit._ ”  
  
She won’t deny that, especially as her stomach gives a quiet rumble as if it knows it’s been acknowledged. Even the most dry and tasteless of protein rations sounds good, and a change of clothes wouldn’t go amiss. Obi-Wan disappears as she gets up to go about some kind of routine, perhaps allowing her some privacy.  
  
Rey pulls one of the ration packs out of a crate, then goes to another one and pulls out a bacta patch. While there’s no wounds that immediately need healing, the painkiller effect of it would certainly help, and give her one less thing to be distracted by when she tries to meditate. She peels it from the wrapper and sticks it on her neck, scrunching up her nose at the sickly-sweet smell, but relishing in the immediate relief it offers.  
  
When she tucks the medipack into its crate, she pauses, thinking about the lightsaber locked in another one. She turns her head to look at said container, utterly unassuming next to the others, and wonders if somehow he managed to retrieve it. With her ration pack under one arm, she walks over to the crate and crouches down in front of it, unlocking it and flipping the latch. She opens it and with some relief, sees the rough metal hilt, damaged and rusted. Wherever he is, he’s unarmed, and possibly in the care of a ghost that didn’t seem to think twice about breaking his arm.  
  
Rey should let go of her anger, but she’s much slower to let go of her glee at him finally get part of what’s coming to him.  
  
\---  
  
Her meditation has a rough start, as the events of the past few days buzz in her head like flies on a carcass. Trying to grasp inner peace is ruthlessly interrupted by visions of his lightsaber, blow after blow raining down on her. If she clears that away, then it’s his hand on her neck, and the feeling of the bacta patch where his thumb was. Even when she tries to dissolve his attacks on her, then it’s the image of him alone, restrained by the cables and looking like the entire universe beat down on him. She sees his eyes, black and burning like embers, ringed with exhaustion, set against a sickly face. No matter how hard she tries, Kylo Ren burns in her thoughts.  
  
When she gives it a little leeway, she’s surprised at how quickly it becomes full-tilt anger. Her mind unhelpfully racks up a list of his transgressions, one after the other, accompanied by images of pain and suffering, feelings of fear, loss, terror. She relieves patches of the nightmare that came when she first touched Anakin’s lightsaber, Kylo a menacing presence on a field littered with corpses.  
  
He’s hurt so many people, killed others. She thinks of Finn, her closest friend, and her absolute horror and sorrow at seeing him lying motionless in the snow. Even after, as he healed and she knew to some degree that he would recover, she felt miserable, like somehow, she could have done more. And through Finn, she knows what he did to Poe Dameron, how Kylo ruthlessly tortured him until he literally extracted information from him at the price of blood and sanity.  
  
And still, she sees Han Solo, and she knows her mind is going to a place too dark for meditation.  
  
She’s so angry at him, and it gnaws at every nerve until she feels raw and vulnerable. She wants to see him get hurt the way he’s hurt the others, to experience what he’s done so that he _knows_ , so that he _understands_.  
  
_He never will understand,_ she tells herself, and her fists clench at the thought. Her throat tightens and her eyes feel hot with tears that want to fall. _How can a person like that have ever loved anyone? How could he have ever cared about anything?_  
  
He hurt her. He reached into places he should have never reached. If she hadn’t fought back, it could have been so much worse, and it wasn’t until she _did_ fight back that he backed off at all. Then he physically fought her, twice between Starkiller and Dagobah, and then tried to kill her outright.  
  
_How can I not be angry?_  
  
There’s no one to answer her this time, no Jedi master’s ghost there to coach her and talk her through this. She’s alone on this outcropping of rock, and she feels like fire against the air, earth, and water that surround her.  
  
She feels like _him._  
  
Her eyes shoot open at the thought, seeing the pond before her trembling in ripples from the rain.  
  
Did he ever ask himself that? Did he ever sit the way she sits now and ask if there was any reason he shouldn’t feel the way he did? Did there come a point where he accepted his anger as something that was just a part of him? Was that where it all started to go wrong?  
  
There’s not much she knows about him before he became Kylo Ren. Master Luke avoided the topic as much as he could, since penance was still something he was seeking. Leia said very little as well. No one else had the answers. What she _does_ know was that Ben Solo was a bright student, quick to learn, stubborn and brilliant and poised for success. He had a bloodline to envy, a family of heroes surrounding him, and a future that seemed _so_ bright.  
  
What happened to him? What was it that finally convinced him that he couldn’t be Ben Solo anymore, than he had to kill off that part of himself like a wound gone gangrenous, and adopt an identity that would become a murderer? What was it that convinced him that becoming a murderer would be _better_ than what he was?  
  
And the biggest question, the one that had remained with her since that moment in the oscillator...  
  
Was Ben Solo truly dead?  
  
Her mind is a fog that suits Dagobah, and it’s difficult to try to will any of it away. The anger is still present, but she finds that it quells a little, like it’s being dampened by the rain itself. She draws in a deep breath through her nose, smelling the ozone of the rainfall and the now-familiar scent of the swamp. She listens to the droplets on the water, the hiss of wind through the trees, the call of animals near and far away. With this, she draws herself deeper down the well of her subconscious.  
  
The last thing she truly _thinks_ is, once again, what Qui-Gon Jinn told her.  
  
People change. People go from Light to Dark. She can change as well. Anything can. The nature of the universe itself is perpetual change.  
  
And the Force unrolls before her, endless and so beautiful.  
  
\---  
  
Kylo’s awakening is not slow and steady like before. It’s harsh and it comes in a jerk of raw, screeching pain in his arm, causing him to gasp as he opens his eyes. He’s met with dirt below him, his face pressed against it and a root pressing into the side of his head. It does nothing for the headache that hasn’t abated since Rey knocked him out, but the pain in his arm is too great to block out with anger towards her.  
  
On the other hand, pain might make an exception for anger by the sound of someone _laughing_ at him.  
  
“ _It has to be in your blood to be so damn impulsive,_ ” a male voice says, and Kylo has to roll onto his back to see who it is, as his arm is in no shape to support him.  
  
He gets a better view of his surroundings this way, finding himself near where he landed his TIE fighter. It’s a murky section of swamp, backed up against a rocky hillside that forms a natural shelter. Moss hangs down in curtains, and the fog seems thicker here than elsewhere, making the entire area seem otherworldly, even for Dagobah. He had no intention of staying here for very long, thankfully.  
  
At least, he’s thankful until he sees what’s behind the blue glowing figure in front of him.  
  
One of the wings of the fighter is sticking right out of the murky gray swamp water, and that’s it. There’s no sight of the cockpit.  
  
The ghost sitting before him hums thoughtfully and turns to look at what he’s looking at. “ _Oh. That’s unfortunate,_ ” the ghost says, although he sounds like sympathy is the farthest thing from his mind. “ _That’s going to be pretty hard to clean out._ ”  
  
Kylo focuses on the ghost, seeing that it’s a man right around his age wearing the typical getup of a Jedi. There’s something unsettling about him, and for the life of him, Kylo can’t get a proper reading of his presence. He fades in and out of the Force, like breath vapor fading from a frozen window. Kylo doesn’t recognize him, and doesn’t particularly _care_. What he’s far more concerned with is that he has several broken bones and a TIE fighter that is currently being well acquainted with the bottom of a swamp.  
  
“What did you do?” he snarls, forcing himself up with his good hand.  
  
The ghost feigns innocence, even going as far as putting his arms behind him and looking up at the tree canopy thoughtfully. “ _What ever do you mean?_ ”  
  
Out of instinct, Kylo reaches for his lightsaber, only to find that it’s not there. His memory supplies that the girl still has it, and she’s done Force-only-knows-what with it. His anger flares up to outright _fury._  
  
“ _Don’t_ play with me,” he growls, and he would shout if he wasn’t too busy trying to will the pain away. It’s not working, and it just makes everything _worse._ “Where’s the girl?”  
  
“ _What girl?_ ”  
  
Is there a way to kill a ghost? There has to be.  
  
“You know what girl. There’s only one other living thing on this damn planet.”  
  
“ _Actually, there’s a lot. You’re going to have to be specific otherwise I’m going to think you’re referring to a dragonsnake. That could get messy._ ”  
  
Kylo tries to get up, but other than his body being a mess, something is _literally_ holding him down, like he’s being pinned to the dirt. He seethes on the spot, seconds from screaming out of sheer frustration.  
  
“ _Easy there,_ ” the ghost says, as casually as if he’s speaking to Kylo in a cantina. “ _She’s fine and she’s in good hands. Nothing to worry about._ ”  
  
“She should be dead,” Kylo manages past clenched teeth. His good hand flexes at the thought.  
  
“ _That’s no way to treat someone. Besides, you’re in way worse shape,_ ” the ghost replies, and he looks at Kylo like he’s proud of his handiwork. Behind him, the TIE fighter makes a sloshing sound and sinks a little more. “ _And your ride’s not doing too good either. That girl should be the least of your worries._ ”  
  
Kylo sees red, and tries to will the Force to get him out of what ever lockdown this ghost has him under. He tries to do what he did with the X-wing cables, but nothing happens. There’s just a sensation like an enormous wave of water crashes into a wall, and the wall doesn’t give way.  
  
“ _Hey, knock it off,_ ” the ghost warns. “ _I’m serious. You’ve got some pretty bad medical issues here and you’re foaming at the mouth over a girl you couldn’t kill. I think your priorities are backwards._ ”  
  
“Shut _up!_ ” Kylo roars, but the strain alone makes his ribs sting in the worst way and he recoils at it. Nausea rolls heavy in his stomach and black spots appear in his vision. It takes just about everything he has not to just lay back down in the dirt and give up. He’s been through worse. He’s _fought_ through worse. A ghost of some Jedi shouldn’t be enough to completely disarm and bind him, and yet here he is.  
  
The ghost doesn’t say anything. Instead, he walks over to Kylo’s side and stands over him, tilting his head to get a better look. “ _Some Jedi, huh?_ ” the ghost echoes his thoughts. Kylo jerks at the realization that he didn’t feel anything prying at his mind. “ _You have a lot to learn. Did you even get your Padawan braid cut off or did you just hack it off yourself?_ ”  
  
“Don’t even compare me to _them,_ ” Kylo manages, biting down hard as his ribs still pulse and feel like they’re going to pierce through his skin.  
  
“ _What, Jedi? Oh, right._ ” The ghost reaches out, his hand hovering right above Kylo’s head. There’s an uncomfortable prickling sensation that arises on his scalp, and it’s gone just as fast. “ _Huh. ‘Jedi Killer’. That’s a pretty loaded nickname. I take it you earned that._ ”  
  
“Yes, I did,” Kylo replies, gritting his teeth again and angling his bad arm so it rests against his chest. “I killed people like you.”  
  
His intended reaction doesn’t come about. Instead, the ghost looks _pleased._ “ _People like me? No, people like me would have ripped you clear in half._ ”  
  
It doesn’t even sound like a threat when he says it. It sounds like _fact_ , like this ghost is reading from history itself.  
  
“ _And people like me sink TIE fighters, break the arms of people trying to kill very intelligent young Jedi, and haul their sorry carcasses back to where they started, even when people like me are dead._ ” He walks around Kylo, the smile on his face so dissonant with his words that even Kylo finds it strange. “ _People like me are very hard to kill, Kylo Ren._ ”  
  
Breathing hard, teeth gritted, Kylo peers up at the ghost and tries to eke out _who_ the specter is. There’s nothing. No hint of it in the Force, no sign of it on this man’s face. So Kylo concedes and asks, “Who are you?”  
  
The ghost regards him like he’s something to be spectated, like a creature in an enclosure, like he’s waiting for Kylo to do or say something. Then, he lets out a breathy, humorless laugh. “ _No one you know,_ ” he says.  
  
That feels wrong. Kylo knows him somehow, but he can’t place it. It’s like trying to recall something from an entirely different lifetime, one he doesn’t even remember living.  
  
“ _Anyway, you’ve got yourself caught up in quite the situation, no supplies and all. That’s going to make your vacation tricky, to say the least._ ”  
  
Kylo can’t do much else than glare, and glare he does. “Someone will come back for me,” he says, trying to sound more confident about it than he feels.  
  
“ _I wouldn’t count too much on that. Besides, even if they do, you still have to survive out here with all your maladies and no lightsaber._ ”  
  
The last thing Kylo wants to do is say that he has a point. He told very few people where he was going, and those he did tell, he also told that it might be some time before he returned, and to wait for his call before coming as reinforcements or what ever else he needed. It could potentially be weeks before anyone even gets suspicious. He’s disappeared for long periods of time before in order to do private missions. In his current state, even trying to call out to the Supreme Leader seems to be a challenge. That, and he’s not entirely willing to admit defeat yet, and certainly unwilling to show signs that he was weak enough to be completely throttled by not only a barely-trained Jedi but a ghost as well.  
  
He elects to say nothing. He doesn’t want to give the ghost satisfaction.  
  
“ _However,_ ” the ghost says, and his grin comes back in spades. “ _Your target has plenty of supplies on hand, including quite a bit of bacta._ ”  
  
Kylo narrows his eyes, and his glare doesn’t lessen in its intensity. “What are you suggesting? I go seek her out again? You don’t expect me to kill her and just take what I need?”  
  
“ _No, I don’t expect you do it. In fact, if you try to do it again, it’s going to be both of your legs next._ ”  
  
At this, Kylo sneers, but there’s not as much venom behind it. “I thought you Jedi were supposed to seek peace. Threatening seems below you.”  
  
“ _I never was a very typical Jedi,_ ” the ghost replies easily, and there’s a glint in his eyes like there’s far more to it than that. Then, he disappears, but not without Kylo getting the barest shimmer of light in his perception.  
  
What ever is holding him in place lifts and Kylo manages to make himself stand, although nearly every part of him protests it. He cradles his arm and takes a step, only to find that his ankle protests as well, less like he sprained it and more like he twisted it. Exhaustion creeps in on him almost immediately, and he has just enough energy to reach out in the Force and feel for the girl.  
  
\---  
  
Rey doesn’t know how long she’s been meditating when she feels the change. It’s tiny at first, and it almost doesn’t register at all. She’s caught in that harmony she felt before, when all the planets and lifeforms seem to sing together, and the result is something that feels cleansing, fills her up from top to bottom, leaves her feeling light and airy and untouchable. Even the darkest parts of their galaxy seem to be a part of it, providing low, sonorous notes to match the highest ones. She listens intently, feeling like if she listens long enough, she’ll learn something monumental.  
  
The change pauses it, a flicker of life reaching out to her. It’s nearly painful to tear herself away from the song that keeps the Force held together, but she does. She shrinks down her perception little by little, until she’s back in the starry network of life that is Dagobah.  
  
_He’s_ reaching for her, and Rey nearly falls off of the outcropping at the shock of it. He’s not marching forward intending to kill her again. In fact, he has the life signature of a struggling creature, like prey in the claws of its predator. It’s not bait, as far as she can tell, but she’s been wrong before.  
  
She feels him pause at her intrusion, and she knows he can feel her hesitation.  
  
_I don’t trust you,_ she says. She pushes against their temporary bond to get the point across, couples it with a flash of images that she’d been reviewing earlier. Him attacking her multiple times, Finn, Poe, Han Solo, and everything else that she had reflected on. With some trepidation, she forces her anger down, swallows it like the bitter thing it is. She won’t kill him, and she won’t allow herself to get into a state where she’s at risk of _becoming_ him.  
  
_I know,_ he sends back, and it sounds like an admission gained at blaster-point.  
  
Something’s changed, even in microscopic ways. There’s a slight shift in the way he holds himself. Right now, he isn’t the wildfire she’s used to. He’s been doused to crackling embers, although it’s inevitable that he’ll fan himself back up to flames as soon as he can.  
  
Rey is conflicted, enough that it draws her completely out of her meditation and places her back in the humidity and rain of Dagobah, back into her body which is sweaty and soaked. There is no reason in this galaxy or the next that she should help him. Even if she won’t kill him where she stands, she shouldn’t offer him help. He’ll recover in time, and he’ll be right back on his path, leaving a smoking trail of destruction behind him wherever he goes. Even though he’s not the First Order itself, he’ll do his part to damage the Resistance. He won’t stop at her, or Finn, or Poe, or anyone else she’s come to care about.  
  
But she doesn’t want to be the person that turns him away, either. She can. She can put her foot down right this moment and tell him to turn around, or go out there and shove him into the swamp and tell him to swim his way out.  
  
_That’s the lesson though, isn’t it?_ _That’s part of why you came to Dagobah._  
  
Peace, serenity, knowledge, harmony. There’s all sorts of things she needs to learn about. She tries to be an embodiment of them, and Kylo goes against all of it. There will be no peace or serenity with him, and certainly no harmony. And if knowledge includes that of the common variety, it really goes against all common sense to let her get anywhere near her.  
  
She thinks of the song that she heard the universe sing, all of its living beings harmonizing, and the intense beauty of it all. Then, she thinks of the darkness, the low voices that complement the high.  
  
_Use this to find that harmony,_ something tells her. _No one becomes a Jedi by meditation alone._  
  
With a deep, shaking breath, Rey stands up. Her legs feel like they’re going to give out underneath her, but she keeps her posture. She steels herself against her own apprehension, and she accepts what ever this challenge is. The Force seems to react to it, and it curls around her like wind in her hair and water at her feet.  
  
_Kylo Ren,_ she calls out, and she feels him pay attention. _Come here._  
  
Fear and anger drain out of her the second she says it. Rey feels nothing but strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> Behind the scenes:
> 
> Stormtrooper: Hi, this is the Big Scary First Order Plot Device Ship! How can I help you?  
> Anakin: Hey, I'd like to call in to say my grandson might not be coming back for a few more weeks. Family obligations, stuff like that.  
> Stormtrooper: I see. Can I have your grandson's name?  
> Anakin: Kylo Ren.  
> Stormtrooper: ...How long did you say he was going to be out for?  
> Anakin: Few weeks.  
> Stormtrooper: Thanks for calling, sir. (Echoing noise) GUYS HE'S NOT COMING BACK FOR A FEW WEEKS.  
> (Sounds of partying ensue, enter Hux doing a kazoo solo)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all of your awesome comments and all that good stuff. This trash compactor is going to fill with all the happy tears I've shed over them. <3
> 
> And look! Worldbuilding! (And at least an hour devoting to researching medicine in the Star Wars universe! Yeah!) In short, Bactade is nothing I ever want to try and Asha Ren could step on me and I'd say thank you, whoever she is. Just imagine her as super badass.

However much Rey has internally prepared herself to see him, it isn’t enough. The closer he gets to her camp, the more uneasy she is, the more her strength struggles to stay in place. Her lightsaber is already in her hand when he’s in sight, and she makes sure the lock is in place on the crate holding his. This time, she won’t hesitate.   
  
Kylo hovers near the edge of the camp, and even though the fog and from a distance, she can see he is legitimately injured. His right arm is held to his chest, his breathing is ragged, and he has a pronounced limp. She can feel his anger under the surface, but with the smallest credit to him, he keeps it dammed up for the moment. Rey recognizes this for what it is; a truce, a moment where they stand on no man’s land and are forced to face each other in neutrality.   
  
He doesn’t move and keeps his eyes on her with the wariness and uncertainty of a skittish animal. She does the same, and she sees him shift his glance to the weapon she holds. Hesitantly, she clips it back to her belt and holds both hands up, less in surrender and more in proof that she won’t attack him if he doesn’t. Then, slowly, he starts walking towards her.   
  
Patches, Bactade, and the rest of her medipack sits at the ready. There’s a canister containing a quick-seal splint for his arm and wrist, as well as a small tin of Symoxin as a painkiller. She knows that Jedi (or Sith, in his case) can handle pain well, but Kylo doesn’t look like blocking pain has been his main concern. He limps over to it, his eyes flickering back and forth between the pack and her.   
  
“I’m not going to do anything,” she assures, and takes a step back towards the gnarltree. S4-M1 wheels out from under the X-wing to go to her side and chirps at him. _I might,_ they say.  
  
Kylo snorts at their answer and quickly downs the Symoxin, and then cringes at the sight of the Bactade. “You couldn’t get anything better?”   
  
“You’re lucky I’m giving you anything at all,” Rey replies tersely, her hand still hovering near her lightsaber. She steels her mind against anything he might try and thinks about his proximity to the crate containing his weapon. He’s too close, but not close enough that she couldn’t take two steps and stop him.  
  
He doesn’t deign to respond to her retort. Instead, he opts to remove the splint from the canister, and then eye his arm, still covered in the ridged sleeve.   
  
“You might as well change your clothes,” Rey says. “It’s too humid for what you’re wearing.”  
  
If glares alone could kill, Rey would be battling him right then. With some difficulty, he rolls up his sleeve just high enough to cover with the splint. Instantly, it adheres to his arm and cinches itself hard enough to make him wince. Fittingly, it’s black and goes from the base of his fingers to just below his elbow. He lets out a breath through his nose before flexing his fingers experimentally. Apparently, it’s good enough, as he uses that hand to toss the empty canister back into the open crate.  
  
She can’t stand and watch him all day, although the urge to do so is high with his proximity to his lightsaber. Instead, she reaches over and taps S4-M1 on the head. “Let me know if he does anything stupid,” she instructs, and the droid gives a series of beeps. _I’ll be more than happy to._  
  
“You’re awfully trusting,” Kylo points out as he unrolls a bandage. “Turning your back on someone who tried to kill you.”  
  
“You won’t do anything,” she replies lightly, and inwardly hopes she’s right.   
  
He doesn’t say anything, but she feels his annoyance so strongly that it’s nearly tangible. Whether it’s directed toward her, Anakin, or both of them is debatable. He’s still absolutely dangerous, and the greatest mistake she could make would be to underestimate him no matter how vulnerable he might seem. Any vulnerability might as well be a ruse for all it could make her let her guard down. She trusts S4-M1, though, as much as she trusts the ghosts that seem to have taken a shine to her. Anakin Skywalker was willing and able to break his own grandson’s arm to protect her, or at least to stop him. There’s plenty of forces at work on Dagobah, and Rey just hopes they keep working in her favor.  
  
She also has a lot to think about, especially if Kylo’s going to be in close proximity for awhile. Rey isn’t entirely sure of what Anakin did, but judging by the fact that Kylo literally had to go to her with his tail between his legs for something as basic as medical treatment suggests that he’s going to be hard-pressed to leave Dagobah soon. She would even go as far as to think that his supplies either disappeared entirely or are unusable. If that’s the case, and seeing as she can’t kill him, she’s going to have to figure out a plan.  
  
_I could just leave him stranded,_ she thinks, glancing at the X-wing. _S4-M1 and I could just leave and that would be it._  
  
Except that defeats the purpose of her coming to Dagobah in the first place. She’s extremely Force-sensitive, and judging by the past few days, has more power than she ever thought. But she came to hone those powers to precision, to learn and absorb everything the planet has to offer, to gain wisdom from the Jedi masters. To leave now would go against what Master Luke set her out to do.   
  
And she’d be training in the presence of her enemy. It could even help.  
  
_Just don’t forget piloting is in his blood, and you have an X-wing out in the open._ _You could be the one stranded here,_ a little voice reminds her.   
  
“S4-M1,” she says, and the astromech turns their head and chirps attention. “What ever you do, do _not_ let him use the X-wing. That’s an order.”  
  
He turns to look at her incredulously while S4-M1 lets out an excited beep of affirmation. _You got it, boss!_  
  
“Are you serious?”   
  
“Absolutely. That’s a Resistance spacecraft and you’re the last person in the galaxy that needs to be flying one.”  
  
“That’s rich coming from a thief,” he sneers.  
  
“Scavenger,” she reminds him again. “No X-wing, and no trying anything on S4-M1. You’ll get a lightsaber in your gut for the trouble.” Not true, exactly, but the threat stands clear between them, and all he does is curse under his breath and continue unwinding the bandages.   
  
She decides not to go as far as the outcropping to meditate, this time opting to stay within hearing distance of S4-M1.   
  
\---  
  
Kylo watches her leave, and then shoots a glare at her astromech. Even though the droid can’t emote, he gets the distinct impression that S4-M1 is returning the favor. “Not like you could do much,” he grumbles at them.  
  
In response, S4-M1 opens a panel on their chassis and releases a rod sparking with blue electricity. _Try me,_ they beep.  
  
Unfortunately, much to his absolute chagrin, the girl’s right for the moment. Kylo can’t do anything. He _won’t_ do anything. The sense of defeat weighs heavy on him and leaves him wanting to tear her camp to shreds. She’s holding it over his head, showing it off by willingly leaving the camp to meditate, knowing he’s in a place where he can’t raise a finger out of order, lest get electrocuted by her droid, speared by her, or otherwise broken into thousands of tiny pieces by the ghosts that apparently favor her. _Ghosts!_ Kylo sincerely hopes that the Supreme Leader doesn’t intercept any of this, because if his shame wasn’t bad enough, the physical punishment certainly would be.  
  
And this all seems to be topped off with him being stuck on Dagobah. She couldn’t have been sent to a decent planet, instead opting for a disgusting swamp where the air itself seems to be mostly water and the creatures are a toss-up between passive and murderous. Not to mention, she’s right on another count. It’s so humid that his skin crawls. Kylo looks around and though he detects her presence, he can’t see her. With a grunt, he strips out of his outer layer, mindful of his ribs and arm. The tabard is almost completely soaked in sweat and water, so he discards it near the front of the X-wing, along with his cowl. By the time he’s done, he’s down to a plain shirt, trousers, and boots, and it _still_ feels like too much.   
  
Kylo sits on one of the crates and takes a moment to breathe deep, finally trying to block out the pain that the Symoxin hasn’t tamped yet. Meditation was never a successful venture, so he stumbles more than eases into a mindful state. Even then, it’s uneasy. There’s more Light in this place than what he’s used to, and only a few places on the whole planet radiate any Dark. He can feel them, regardless of their distance, and he draws as deep as he can from their source like a dying man to a spring.   
  
The pain recedes slowly. It eases back into the darkness until it’s just an afterthought. Once he’s pleased with his results, he takes the bandages from beside him, rolls up his shirt, and starts binding his abdomen in a compression wrap. The least it will do his help stabilize his ribs until the bacta heals them.   
  
Once he’s done and set the wrap, he reaches over and takes the bottle of Bactade. It sloshes around in the bottle, its color unsettlingly similar to the swamp water around them. With a slight cringe, he opens the bottle and takes the biggest swallow he can manage, shuddering at the taste of it, chalky and bitter and almost unwilling to go down. It should be something he’s accustomed to, but the smell and taste of it is forever going to make him a hair short of gagging.  
  
After that, it’s just a matter of resting and letting the bacta do its work. He doesn’t go anywhere near her bedroll, save to fetch his helmet from where she left it in the dirt. Instead, he chooses the biggest crate to sit on, putting his helmet on the smaller crate next to it.   
  
There’s not much else he can do but meditate while the hardest part of his recovery moves along. Stretching is out of the question for the moment, and he’s not too keen on walking. So he decides to run through lightsaber forms in his head, forming elaborate mental battles in some attempt to keep his skills sharp. In his mind, he faces off against larger opponents, faster ones, inexperienced, experienced, and everything in between. He faces his fellow Knights and has an explosive battle with Asha Ren who hides her face behind a Mandalorian helmet. She fights like a bounty hunter, and isn’t far above using those tactics in battle. She schemes her way through the fight, finds corners to cut to get to him faster, makes it so he barely scrapes by. In this projected battle, he feels the sweat run down his face, his muscles tensing, his breath coming in harder as she swings at him with the finesse that’s made her such a formidable opponent.   
  
“ _You’ve grown soft,_ ” this projected Asha says, and Kylo manages to reel back just far enough for her to miss his shoulder. Her voice scrapes through her modulator and makes her sound positively vicious. “ _You’re weaker than when you left. They’ve changed you._ ”  
  
He tries to hit her, but she blocks him effortlessly, twists herself so that he’s thrown back a few steps. Then, she circles around him, her breathing practically a purr through her mask. “ _He told you what to do, how to become strong again. Have you done it, Kylo?_ ”  
  
He tries to answer, but she thrusts her lightsaber into his side over the bowcaster scar, and jerks him out of his vision.  
  
Real sweat drips down his face, and his chest heaves with rattling breath. His ribs ache past their compression, so he focuses on schooling his breathing.   
  
Experimentally, he focuses on his lightsaber, willing it to come to him. Nearby, he hears a rattle in one of the cargo chests and S4-M1 gives him a warning trill. _Knock it off._ He concedes, just for the moment, but it’s a success. The girl didn’t throw it into the swamp like he thought, and if he really needs it, he can get it.   
  
His mission is still clear in his mind, so he shifts his thoughts to that.  
  
_Dead or alive,_ the Supreme Leader had said. Kylo can still feel Snoke’s eyes on him, the feeling settling deep into him that he could _not_ fail. Snoke had spent too much time training him, too much effort to allow him to mess it up. _Your weakness is clear, and it must be eliminated. That was why you failed before. That is why you will not fail again._  
  
The lightsaber gives one final thunk against the walls of the crate before going silent, and Kylo stares at it. He can be patient. He can wait it out until the time is right and nothing stands between him and victory. His haste was what ruined him before, and his eagerness only expedited a possible downfall. His grandfather would never have been so crass and impatient, he thinks. Kylo will try his best to emulate it.  
  
He will not leave Dagobah without the girl, that much is sure.  
  
\---  
  
Rey’s slide into a meditative state is difficult with Kylo Ren nearby. Darkness spreads like tendrils on the edge of her focus and it becomes a task just to keep it away long enough for her to ease herself into the comforting cocoon that the Force has become for her.   
  
This time, she tries to be more proactive. She’s gathered stones of multiple sizes and focuses on stacking them without _thinking_ about them. It was a task Master Luke gave her before on the island, but it was far easier to do when nothing stood in her way. Her mind struggles to clear itself, and it doesn’t matter if she imagines the barren deserts of Jakku or the ocean stretching outward with no land in sight, her thoughts jumble and tangle with no clear way to sort them.  
  
With all of that, it shouldn’t be a surprise when she feels someone join her, fading in as quietly as mist. She opens her eyes to see Yoda standing at the edge of the water, regarding the pile of stones.  
  
“ _A familiar exercise, you try,”_ he says, and he gives her a peculiar amused look.  
  
“Master Luke tried to teach me,” she explains, finding that she’s far more at ease around the ghosts now, as if they’re still living. “It worked before, but now...” Rey sighs and glances towards the gnarltree.  
  
Yoda follows her line of vision before shaking his head. “ _That boy... The Dark side consumes him. He will find no peace this way._ ”  
  
“I don’t think he wants to find peace,” Rey replies stretching her arms above her head before resting them on her knees. “I’m not sure _what_ he’s trying to find, actually.”  
  
For a moment, Yoda seems to be deep in thought, before he hums and taps the ground with his staff. “ _You do not train to learn about him,_ ” he tells her. “ _Focus, a Jedi must._ ”  
  
“It’s hard with him so close,” she says. “It’s like he makes all this interference and it gets harder and harder to block it out. I was able to meditate so well before. I even drew on the Force mid-battle with him and I have no idea what changed!”  
  
“ _The Dark side speaks to you. Anger, you’ve felt. Fear. These things cloud your mind still, and continue, they will, until you learn to control them._ ”  
  
“I have!” she protests. “I let go. Obi-Wan told me the same thing, and Qui-Gon Jinn told me that people can change, including me! I know what’s going to happen if I fail.”  
  
“ _Too many masters, only one apprentice,_ ” Yoda replies, and he shakes his head again. “ _Interference from this boy, you say. More interference from the Jedi, I say._ _You fear this failure, but let go of that fear, you must._ ”  
  
The fear she could become like Kylo Ren, or Darth Vader. They were strong and had promise, and she had already felt that call to the Dark before. It’s awfully hard to release it, what with everything she’s witnessed and learned about. The more she tries to quell it, the bigger it seems to become.   
  
Yoda knows this. She can see it in his face. He sighs and closes his eyes. “ _Always with these feelings, you young Jedi have._ ”  
  
“How can I not be afraid?” she asks honestly, perhaps a bit desperately. “There’s people like _him_ out there, and so many Jedi have died. I feel like I’ll either become like them or be killed!”  
  
When he opens his eyes, Yoda isn’t looking at her anymore. His gaze crosses the swamp, stares out a long way. “ _Then face your fear, you must,_ ” he says quietly. “ _Cross the swamp and find the place where the Dark side thrives. There, you will learn._ ”

  
She feels herself pale and her stomach churns. The Dark side is exactly what she would like to _not_ seek out.   
  
“What’s out there?” she asks.  
  
“ _Only what you take with you,_ ” he replies, and vanishes once more.  
  
And again, Rey finds herself wishing that one of them would have a straightforward conversation with her for once.  
  
\---  
  
When she returns to the camp, she finds Kylo Ren sitting cross-legged on the biggest crate, eyes closed. She sees his pile of clothes under the X-wing and the helmet beside him, and thankfully, the lightsaber nowhere in sight. It’s strange seeing him in normal clothes, save for the splint on his arm, and not for the first time, she thinks that if they were different people in a different place, she would barely notice him. His physical features don’t radiate _evil_ or _Sith_. Looking the way he does, he could easily blend in with people in the Resistance base, or be an X-wing pilot, or just someone _else._  
  
“You’re staring,” he says, eyes still closed.  
  
“You listened to me,” she replies, reaching into one of the crates and pulling out a well-used towel. It’s practically useless out here, but it makes her feel better, even if she’s just pushing around the sweat rather than wiping it away. Rey wipes her face and her arms, then throws it back into the crate.  
  
“It was necessary,” he returns, and she can see the barest wrinkle across his nose. He’s cringing. “I’m sure you have a hygiene kit somewhere.”  
  
“I’m saving it.” She closes the crate with more force than necessary, and is honestly a little disappointed that he doesn’t flinch.   
  
Their peace is on a thin, brittle wire, and she knows it. The only reason he’s not having an outburst is because he knows he’ll be skewed four different ways if he tries anything. He’s in the company of his enemy, and she’s in the company of hers, and this strange little truce can only last so long. He’ll heal, and he’ll move on to whatever he has to do. If that means his mission that concerns her, then he’ll do it.   
  
_He doesn’t have to. He might not,_ the small voice in her head says. _He tried to turn you, remember? Why can’t you try the same thing?_  
  
In a better, nicer world, maybe. They’re living in the midst of a war, and she’s still fighting the belief that she’s on the losing side. Out there in their great big galaxy, the First Order and the Resistance are at each others' throats. Planets have been destroyed, so many have died, and so many soon will. He’s hardly poised to change sides now, especially after their past few exchanges. He came to either kill or kidnap her, and this whisper of a planet in the Outer Rim is the only shred of peace either of them have.  
  
Then, she thinks of this Dark signature she has to follow, and worry sits cold in her gut. She can’t very well leave him here, especially with the X-wing. If there’s a source of darkness on the planet, she also worries about the effects it will have on him. It leaves her with very few choices, so she has to settle on one.  
  
“I’m leaving in a few days, to go find something,” she says, opening another crate and getting out a ration pack and some utensils.  
  
She can feel him try to pry into her mind again, but she shuts him out quickly. Instead, he sniffs and doesn’t move. “Scavenging on a planet like this doesn’t seem lucrative.”  
  
“I’m not _scavenging,_ ” she retorts, opening the pack. Multicolored capsules, bags of powders, and tubes greet her. She picks up a bag of gray-brown powder and tears it open, dumping it into a metal bowl. “It’s a mission.”  
  
He turns his head and she feels him watching her go through the motions of making food. She idly wonders when was the last time he ate, and then waves that thought off. He can take care of that himself.   
  
“You mean other than stacking rocks?”   
  
She pours water from a canteen into the bowl and mixes the powder with her spoon, then watches the mixture start to steam. “Other than stacking rocks. Once you’re a little more healed up, we’ll go.”  
  
A beat of silence. Somewhere, a lizard skitters over the trunk of a gnarltree and gets eaten by a bigger lizard. Something plops into the water nearby. Then, “ _We?_ ”  
  
She nods and stirs the soup before pulling out one of the tubes from the pack and tearing that open. “You don’t think I’m just going to leave you here, do you?” she asks, breaking the tube of protein up and dumping the contents into the bowl.   
  
“I thought the droid was supposed to be holding me hostage.”  
  
Rey raises an eyebrow at him, and then at S4-M1 who makes a low whirring sound of discontent. “You don’t think I’m stupid enough to believe you couldn’t take on a droid if you tried?”  
  
“You seemed to think so earlier.”  
  
“I was within earshot of you two. If something happened, I could run over and take care of it. That’s not going to work with me leaving for a longer period of time. In fact, S4-M1 can come with us to keep you company.”  
  
The droid chirps and beeps, and Kylo glares daggers at them. Then, he pauses and seems to consider something. He takes in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out through his mouth before looking at her, conceding mentally. “Where exactly are you going?”  
  
Rey gestures to her right, out past where he came from. She has no idea if that’s correct, but it was roughly in the same direction that Yoda pointed. “Out there. I’ll know it when we find it.”  
  
“You’ll know it when we find it,” he repeats dryly. “Very confidence-boosting. I’m just itching to follow.”  
  
The thought of pushing him into the swamp comes back with a vengeance, and she projects that thought to him. She even provides a lovingly-illustrated mental image of it, which may or may not include a dragonsnake trying to eat him. To his credit, he doesn’t react, even when she pictures the creature chomping on him.   
  
“You have a very colorful imagination,” he finally says, and there’s a strain in his voice that wasn’t there before.  
  
“I had a lot of time to develop it,” Rey replies before taking her bowl of soup and sitting on an opposite crate, folding her legs up and resting the bowl in the crux. “So that’ll be in, what, four days?”  
  
“Less than that,” he scoffs. “Two at _most._ ”  
  
He says that, but she can feel the underlying doubt, and he quickly corrals it as soon as he can feel her touching on it. His face doesn’t betray it, but his stare is a little more uneasy. Still, Rey wasn’t going to show him mercy aside from what she had to give him. The medicine was going to be the extent, as she didn’t offer him the ration pack and she certainly wasn’t going to offer him the extra bedroll tucked away in the X-wing. Let him sit with that for two days, and then she was going to haul him across the swamp no matter what state he was in.  
  
“Fine,” she says, and makes a show of eating her soup. The sands of Jakku are still in her, as she doesn’t let a single drop of it leave the bowl, but she certainly flaunts that she has it. He goes right back to glaring at her almost immediately.   
  
She doesn’t say it, and neither does he, but there’s definitely an agreement that even two days is going to take forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP YEAAHHHH


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, how many times can I start these notes by thanking all of you? Not enough times. We're going to start having to hand out makeshift life rafts in this trash compactor because this bad boy is going to be _flooded_. You're legit all amazing and I love yoooou.  <3
> 
> And here, for your viewing convenience, the longest and most emotionally-loaded chapter I've written thusfar. Not as fun and spunky as the others, maybe (that's next chapter, a.k.a. The Big Fun Road Trip) but definitely a sign that Reylo is on the horizon and this fic isn't completely dedicated to me whumping on Kylo for all that I'm worth. It's slow, but these kids aren't head-over-heels here. They're just getting over the 'I want you dead right now' stage that's typical of all relationships, right?

Two days is _not_ enough time. Kylo won’t say it, even though he knows at this point that Rey won’t gloat out loud. No, she’ll probably just smile at him and tell him that it’s fine and she won’t leave for a few more days, and that’s the problem. He refuses to say it on the sheer fact that she’ll be completely okay with it. Because then she’ll be _right_ and it’s going to be another tally mark in her favor. Not that he’s keeping a running count of it (he is, and they’re four to one right now), but he’s not going to concede to _her_ that he’s not as strong as he thought. She’s a barely-trained Jedi and she’s young and she’s right and-- _No._  
  
He hasn’t brought up the ghosts to her yet, since he isn’t entirely sure that she saw the ghost that attacked him, and she hasn’t said anything about them either. They like her, though, and they hate him. Or, at least, they derive some joy in making his life significantly harder, specifically the dark-haired one that swamped his TIE fighter and had the gall to jeer at him over it.  
  
That ghost leaves him alone for _one_ day.  
  
The first day that he spends at her camp, trying to meditate despite the gnawing hunger in his stomach and the pain that peeks up through the cover of Symoxin and bacta. He’s also exhausted, but so is she, so they’re even. Paranoia is strong in both of them, and he knows that she holds off sleep as much as he does, convinced that the other is going to attack. He _can’t_ , partially due to S4-M1 staring at him, and partially because the last thing he needs is his legs getting broken. She can’t because it wouldn’t be morally right or what ever she seems to think, even though when she tries to rest, her lightsaber is in her hand rather than clipped to her belt.  
  
They move around each other like repelling magnets, always maintaining a certain distance, and the closer they get, the more uncomfortable it is. When they do come in contact, it’s sharp barbs in conversation or something horribly mundane.  
  
After neither of them sleep on the first night, he knows something has to change.  
  
That night alone convinced him that the entire planet of Dagobah has something against him. Even in the darkness, the swamp is humid and thick with fog, and even though the day is stiflingly warm, the night is frigid. Nocturnal animals turn the jungle into a shrieking cacophony of noise. Coupling that with attempting to sleep on top of a crate and feeling like his stomach was trying to invert itself out of hunger, it made it a very difficult night.  
  
At least he could be smug about the fact that it wasn’t much easier for Rey. Even huddled into the shelter of the gnarltree and burrowed in her bedroll, he could see she wasn’t sleeping either. She tossed and turned, and he knew exactly when she stared at him, making sure he hadn’t disappeared.  
  
By morning, they faced each other like two combatants on a field of battle having to declare surrender, each showing signs of sleeplessness.  
  
“I’m not going to kill you in your sleep,” he forced himself to say, fighting back a yawn and trying to ease back his nausea.  
  
“Same to you,” she had said, and both of them were wordlessly relieved.  
  
By afternoon, they’re relatively back in working order, and after Rey has breakfast, she decides to head back to her meditation spot from the day before.  
  
That leaves Kylo with S4-M1, and very little standing between him and the ration pack that she’s left on top of the crate. He knows she left it there on purpose, but he can’t decide if she left it as a peace offering or as a taunt. If he uses it, she’ll know, and she either won’t say a word or she’ll _grin_ at him and he’ll have to add another to the list.  
  
His stomach, on the other hand, tells him that he really doesn’t have a choice.  
  
He grimaces in defeat and pulls out one of the soup packages, dumping it into a bowl and repeating her steps from last night. The mixture heats itself and Kylo waits it out by pulling a thin pale-brown biscuit from the pack and helping himself. It’s dry and tastes like salted clay, but after a day and a half of not eating anything, he doesn’t care.  
  
“ _Well, look at you,_ ” a voice says, and Kylo recognizes it with a jolt that goes straight up his spine.  
  
He turns slowly and sees the smirking blue specter from before, leaning up against the X-wing. S4-M1 lets out an irritated string of beeps and Kylo’s inclined to agree.  
  
“What do you want?” he demands, and the ache in his arm flares up almost immediately.  
  
“ _Just checking on you. Seeing how you’re doing, fraternizing with the enemy and all._ ”  
  
Behind him, Kylo can hear his lightsaber rattle in the crate again. Not like it’s going to do any good, but the sentiment is enough. “I’m not fraternizing,” he retorts sharply. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be off this planet by now.”  
  
“ _With or without your target?_ ”  
  
The ghost’s threats still loom over him like the fog. Some creature in the swamp makes a noise that sounds uncannily like a death rattle. Rather than answer, Kylo turns away and mixes his soup instead. The prickly static feeling of the ghost at his back doesn’t subside, and he can feel the infernal thing _smirk_ at him.  
  
“ _Alright, fair enough. I break your arm, I sink your fighter. Maybe I should expect the silent treatment._ ”  
  
“You could go away. That would be helpful,” Kylo murmurs, stirring the soup with more force than necessary.  
  
“ _Would it?_ ” the ghost asks, and Kylo turns around with bowl in hand to see the ghost gazing out over the swamp. Kylo then notices the scar that vertically crosses over his right eye. There’s yet another pang of familiarity, but it sinks deep into his memory before he can grasp it. Before he can say anything else, the ghost shrugs and glances back at Kylo, smirk right back in place. “ _Anyway, word through the swamp is that you’re going on a trip soon._ ”  
  
“Maybe,” Kylo says, even though that’s a lie. Rey would be more likely to skewer him than let him stay.  
  
The ghost hums thoughtfully. “ _I doubt that it’s a maybe. Either way, she picked an interesting destination. You might even get something out of it. Very educational._ ”  
  
“I don’t think she knows where she’s going.”  
  
“ _Oh, she will. Don’t worry about that. Just worry about what you’re going to do when you get there._ ”  
  
Kylo knows the ghost wants him to ask. Just to spite him, he doesn’t say a word. It has the adverse effect of angering him. Instead, the ghost seems oddly pleased by it. “ _You remind me a lot of someone I knew,_ ” he says, and it sounds like a compliment. “ _Granted, an attitude like that got him killed._ ”  
  
“Yeah, and what got you killed? I should thank it, whatever it is,” Kylo snips back. He realizes he’s dialed down on his reactions to the ghost, even after fracturing his bones and sinking his only way out of this mudhole of a planet.  
  
The ghost’s eyes actually _brighten_. His smirk turns into a grin and he looks proud. “ _No one killed me. I chose when I died._ ”  
  
“Doesn’t sound very heroic.”  
  
“ _Oh, it was. At least, I like to think it was._ ”  
  
Kylo is about to go in for a snippy reply when he feels something. It’s like a ripple through the Force, and for just the barest moment, he sees a flicker of an image. Some sort of open room, windows looking out at the darkness of space, blue lightning arcing across a short distance, and a rush of feelings in his chest that he knows aren’t his. _Fear, trepidation, decision, resolve, action, protect._ Then the image is gone, and it leaves him feeling strangely empty.  
  
The ghost watches him like he’s waiting for Kylo to say something. Then, he smiles and shakes his head. “ _Like I said, I think it was._ ”  
  
“What was--” Kylo starts, but the ghost puts up a hand to silence him, and Kylo finds himself far more inclined to obey him now. He can’t quite reason out why.  
  
“ _You’ll figure it out. Maybe soon, maybe later. But until then, good luck. You’re going to need it._ ”  
  
The ghost disappears in a flicker of blue light, and Kylo’s left staring at the spot where he was.  
  
\---  
  
Rey nearly falls asleep while meditating, and jerks herself awake almost six times before she finally gives up. The exhaustion is sinking in deep, and aside from a shot in her medipack, there isn’t much out there that can help her. The idea of moving through lightsaber forms is enough to make her groan, and stretches don’t sound any better. They’re the best she can do for the moment, though, and anything is better than sitting idle.  
  
She’s had her fair share of sleepless nights before. There were nights on Jakku where the wind would howl too loud, or the sandstorms would come, or strange figures would come too close to her AT-AT, and Rey would lie awake for hours in her hammock, fear knotting up tight inside of her. This, however, is a different sort of sleepless.  
  
The night before left her hand cramped from her grip on the lightsaber. S4-M1 helpfully informed her that Kylo had found where she hid his, although he hadn’t taken it. Throughout the night, she waited for any sound of him moving. Every stray creak of the crate he had chosen as his bed made her instantly turn to watch him. A few times, she had caught him staring back. Both of them were waiting for the other to move, and so, neither of them got any sleep.  
  
She was so grateful for their truce that morning that she nearly cried in relief.  
  
Her muscles protest her first set of stretches, ones to work out the stiffness in her back and shoulders. She bends down and touches her toes, and then arches back with her hands on her hips. Calf stretches, knee bends, more toe-touches. Slowly, steadily, she works through each muscle. By the time she’s done, she feels loosened up, considerably more limber, and even a bit more awake. Meditation still sounds like a gamble between her and taking a nap, so she decides to try at least a few lightsaber forms, at least until she wears herself out again.  
  
She unclips the weapon from her belt and ignites it, listening to its steady hum and watching the constant fluctuation of blue light. Rey moves into her first stance, left leg stretched behind her, right knee bent, saber tilted to the right. One slice going left, and then another in reverse. She stands up, feet apart, and lifts it over her head, going for a slow-motion downward strike.  
  
In her mind, she first pictures the islands, and Master Luke guiding her through each form. His words still echo in her mind, his presence soothing. The cry of seabirds fill the air, and each little black shape is caught in a gust of wind that sends them spiraling higher and higher above her. The ocean sounds like it breathes against the rocky shoreline. She imagines the green grass, the blue of the endless sea, the gray of the clouds.  
  
Then, black and white. Red and blue.  
  
Rey jerks out of it, taking in a deep breath and easing herself back into her meditative steps. No snow, no black trees. No Kylo Ren and his unstable lightsaber.  
  
Takodana, then. The first time she felt the sun on her face as _warmth_ , not unbearable heat. Pleasant on her skin, casting the grass at her feet in bright green, the treetops a deep emerald. The lake of endless drinkable water was so blue that it took her breath away.  
  
The smell of leather and the sight of eyes crinkling at the corners in a smile that just barely touches his lips. The word that comes up from inside her to match his appearance: _father._  
  
Red again, blazing angrily though a hole in his leather jacket. Her own screams echoing in the dark yawning space of the oscillator.  
  
Again, she jerks. Her breath comes harder now, her fingers white-knuckled on the hilt of the lightsaber. Her shoulders heave with each breath and it takes longer to reel herself back in, to control everything that spins chaotically within her.  
  
D’Qar now, with its rings of ice and rocks. The forests that stretch across it, the lakes that pock its surface, the sweet smell of fresh wind.  
  
And General Organa, walking up to her, her face showing that _she knows_. She knows that Han Solo is never coming back, that her son is lost. Her hands come out and sweep Ray up, tilting the taller girl down to her height and holding her like a mother holding a child.  
  
Without realizing it, Rey slices into a tree, almost cutting clean across the trunk so that the tree groans, crackles, and falls into the closest pond, scaring a few birds and other creatures to flight. Her breathing comes so fast that it hurts, and there are tears in her eyes and unbearable heat straining in her throat. She shuts off the lightsaber and clips it to her belt before crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing her shoulders.  
  
For the first time in months, she feels lonely. Truly, strikingly lonely, the way she felt on those particular nights on Jakku when everything seemed so much darker and so much emptier than they really were. The nights where she felt like a child again, crying for a family that would never come back, but still holding onto that tiny spark of hope that maybe, just _maybe_ they would return. She feels like she stands on a barren precipice, a space only big enough for one foot in front of the other, and that if she missteps, she’ll fall.  
  
It’s a crushing, horrible feeling, and it sends her to the ground, not caring about the wet mud seeping into her clothes. She curls up, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, and she cries. It’s the first good cry she’s had since she went back to D’Qar, having to face Leia and not knowing if Finn would live. It’s the kind of cry that wracks her down to the base of her lungs, the only thing she holds back are the sobs that want to rip their way out of her. Kylo would be able to hear, then, and that’s the last thing she wants.  
  
She feels the ghosts around her, even though she doesn’t lift her head to look at them. The prism of light of Obi-Wan, the starlight of Qui-Gon, the beacon of Yoda, and the roaring sunlight of Anakin. They’re with her, and they aren’t alone. There are others among them, ones she doesn’t know, ones she’ll never know. Generations worth of Jedi, her brothers and sisters, all bright and wonderful.  
  
The Force wraps around her like a blanket, hefted over her shoulders to comfort her. She wants to draw herself in it and hide away in the folds.  
  
Hands touch the sides of her face, warm like the sunlight of Takodana. Rey doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t have to. The pad of a thumb reaches up and wipes her tears away.  
  
“ _You are never alone, Rey,_ ” says Obi-Wan. “ _You never will be. Walk with the Light, and you walk with us._ ”  
  
Her eyes open then, and she doesn’t see these multitudes of ghosts. All she sees is Obi-Wan, his expression unspeakably kind. He’s crouched down to her height, and he regards her the way he would regard an old friend.  
  
Her voice is a tremble, still wobbly from the sobs that threaten, even though she feels warm, safer than she has in days. “Wh-why me?” she manages, and sniffs. “I don’t u-understand.”  
  
“ _There’s so much more to you than you know,_ ” he says with such sureness that she believes it. “ _You have so many things to learn, and so much more to see and do. Your journey is only just beginning._ ”  
  
Rey wants to reach out and touch his hands, and she doesn’t know why. She can’t even though she feels him. So much of her wishes that she could embrace him somehow, like it would make everything alright again. Instead, she twists her hands against the fabric of her pants and sniffs again. “I don’t... I don’t know where to go from here,” she admits, reaching up with one hand to wipe her eyes and her nose.  
  
“ _You know where,_ ” he says.  
  
“Yoda said--”  
  
“ _No, where you go next is no place you can reach on foot, Rey. No amount of space travel can take you there,_ ” he corrects, reaching up to stroke her hair. She can feel it, and at the same time, she can’t. It’s just more warmth, the radiance of a sun on a perfect day. It fills her with an unspeakable happiness, even though her chest still strains with sobs that she won’t allow.  
  
Another presence draws close, and she recognizes it immediately. The sunlight, the impressive endless energy of a brilliant star. In seconds, Anakin joins the two of them, standing behind Obi-Wan and regarding her with a peculiar smile.  
  
“ _What do you think?_ ” he asks Obi-Wan, and something unspeakable passes between the two of them. A conversation Rey can never hope to hear, but it isn’t something that bothers her.  
  
Then, Obi-Wan nods. “ _I think so. More than I ever thought with you._ ”  
  
Anakin feigns hurt for a moment, and then laughs. “ _Thanks a lot._ ”  
  
Rey glances between them Obi-Wan’s hand still on her head. He looks back to her and smiles. “ _We will both be with you. My Master will be, too, and his master before him. Wherever you go from here, Rey, we will be by your side. The Force will be with you._ ”  
  
Slowly, like mist in the sunlight, they fade away. Then, Rey realizes that for the first time since she’s come to Dagobah, there is actual sunlight filtering through the trees. Somehow, it fills her with hope much brighter and more insistent than anything she had before. Stronger than the hope that her family would return, even more enormous than the belief she had in the Resistance.  
  
Rey gets up and walks back toward the camp, feeling better than she has in ages.  
  
\---  
  
She comes back to find Kylo back on top of his crate, leaning back against the X-wing, watching her warily. Something has changed in his expression since when she left, and when she experimentally reaches out in the Force, she feels him reel back. He doesn’t physically move, just watches her passively but cautiously.  
  
It wouldn’t do any good to ask, she thinks. He probably heard the tree fall, or perhaps even felt the presence of the Jedi. What ever it was, he’s more alert because of it.  
  
She walks over to a duffel bag tucked away in the shelter of the tree and goes through the contents, trying to find the cleanest pair of pants she has to replace her mud stained ones. Behind her, Kylo makes a ‘hmph’ noise that sounds like a cross between satisfaction and arrogance. “And how long did you wear that for?”  
  
“At least I have other clothes,” she’s quick to point out, finally finding something suitable. A pair of dark gray utility pants that cut off at her calves. They’re a little stained and they’ve seen better days before Dagobah, but they’re better than nothing. She glances over her shoulder at him before furrowing her brows. “Turn around.”  
  
“Huh?” Then, he sees the pants in her hand and her in the process of toeing her boots off. For a moment, he looks authentically embarrassed, and then morphs that into annoyed acceptance. “Fine,” he mutters, turning himself around on the crate to face the swamp.  
  
Rey is quick about it and tosses her other pants over one of the more horizontal roots of the tree to attempt to wash out later. Difficult, considering the odd lack of flowing water on Dagobah, but not impossible. Then she slips her boots back on and clears her throat.  
  
He turns back slowly and then resumes leaning against the fighter. They settle into an uncomfortable silence, and even with the Jedi coming to her in such an amazing way earlier, her mind still has difficulty letting go of the animosity she felt for him earlier. There’s so many things she wants to say or ask. She wants to know why he really did what he did, if he felt anything when he did it, if he feels guilt now or has any regrets. But she knows she may not like his answers, if he answers at all, so she refrains.  
  
She sits down on her bedroll cross-legged and breathes in deep, trying once more to meditate, and possibly get a nap in.  
  
The silence between them remains, but the awkwardness eases until it’s just silence and nothing more. Rey knows he won’t try anything, and even if he did, S4-M1 is closeby, and her lightsaber is at the ready. He’s as tired, if not more, than she is, and she’s taken their truce at face value.  
  
So she eases herself into meditation, or at least a state of mind very close to it. She focuses less on her control of the Force and more on its flow. She pictures the ocean again and remembers what Master Luke taught her about it. It teems with life, and so many creatures depend on that enormous expanse of water to survive. They are linked together, not even in friendly ways per se, but in a web of life that has no end. They live in a cycle that has existed since the beginning, and the main thing that holds them together is this expanse, so normal that they barely notice it now, but so crucial to their entire existence. Even when they devour each other, they somehow contribute to life within the ocean.  
  
The desert works the same way, Rey thinks. Enormous and full of life even at its emptiest. Plants will grow in places that they’re least expected to be seen. In the cracks of the metal in her AT-AT, little weeds would grow despite the heat and lack of water. In such a barren wasteland, life could still thrive. It was difficult, and sometimes it seemed impossible, but it could be done.  
  
Rey works her way further and further into a meditative state by picturing this web of life, one that stretches between ocean and desert and forest and ice. It lights up every desolate corner of their galaxy, provides life where there shouldn’t be any, and then gives it a reason to _live._ It gives challenges, and allows loss and gain in equal measures.  
  
Or, it should. Sometimes, the balance of this web is upset, and the gains and losses change.  
  
Unprovoked, her mind drifts. It changes into ethereal tendrils in the Force that reach outward, subconsciously finding a source of this imbalance. With remarkable ease and control beyond her, they touch on Kylo Ren’s mind. His guard is down, or she’s just approached him in such a way that he doesn’t notice her. He doesn’t react at all, and for the first time since Starkiller, she reaches in to his very being.  
  
_Loss_ is something she feels poignantly. _Fear_ is another, and it cloaks him like a cowl. His anger never truly abates, and she thinks it must be what drives him when nothing else will. The pain in him is what gives her pause. There’s a deepset ache that reaches far into him, past what he calls ‘Kylo Ren’ and seeps like water through the cracks in any facade he might have tried. She channels the water, and slowly allows herself to creep in.  
  
What she doesn’t expect is for the source to be so _blinding._ It’s images and sounds and the sensation of agony that rips through her, straight from him. Dozens of thoughts cascade into her mind on this strange link that’s formed between them. Thoughts in a voice that is his but isn’t.  
  
_What if they laugh what if they stare why are they saying that I don’t understand why is he leaving what did I do--_  
  
The connection is severed so harshly that Rey gasps. Her eyes fly open and she finds Kylo standing above her, both hands on different roots of the gnarltree. His eyes are wide and angry, his jaw set, his chest heaving.  
  
“What did you _see?_ ” he seethes, and nothing but uncontrollable malice and rage flow off of him.  
  
“I...” She tries to answer, but her voice dies in her throat as she stares up at him. All she can see or hear is a scared little boy, frightened by something far bigger than him and more complex than he could ever understand.  
  
He doesn’t touch her. He doesn’t do much of anything than glare and breathe heavy. “Why did you...”  
  
“I didn’t mean to!” she exclaims, and she’s honest. She tries to project that to him, but he blocks her so suddenly and so harshly that she flinches. Rey feels like she should apologize, but this is _Kylo_ and even though she’s shaken by what she saw and heard, it doesn’t escape her that he’s done so many terrible things with little remorse. Granted, she felt regret within him, and all his guilt is tucked behind a barrier that he builds thicker and thicker every day, but she can’t bring herself to say sorry. She won’t. But she feels she should at least be honest with him.  
  
Then, in a more confident voice, she says, “You did the same to me.”  
  
His expression shifts so suddenly, goes from rage and venom to surprise, and then tampered down to some kind of angry shock. “That... That was different,” he starts, but the earnestness isn’t in it.  
  
And then Rey’s on her feet, glaring up at him. She’s still reeling, and apparently, so is he, but she isn’t in the mood for this. “Isn’t it?” she asks. “What makes it different? Explain that to me!”  
  
She doesn’t hear his arguments, but she feels him going through them. Each one is struck down quickly for one reason or another. He shifts, angles himself away from her. “It was something I had to do,” he says, and it’s through gritted teeth.  
  
“Oh, you _had_ to push in like that?” she asks, taking a step forward as he takes a step back. It’s a nonverbal challenge, and she’s already winning.  
  
“I needed that information,” he says, but his solidity is starting to crumble. His left hand grips the root of the tree harder, but he doesn’t let go. “If we couldn’t get the droid, then you were the next best thing.”  
  
And that’s it. That’s all it takes. Rey shoves him in the chest, right above his broken ribs, so that he’s forced to let go of the tree and stumble back. “That’s _it?_ That’s the only reason you can come up with?” she asks, _demands._ “Do you even have any idea of what you’ve _done?_ Not just to me, but to _millions_ of people, maybe more! Did you ever stop and think about any of that?”  
  
He backs up to his crate, crossed between gaping at her and finally getting a hold on his anger. If he wants to argue, fine. She wants the same thing.  
  
“You can’t possibly understand what I’ve had to do,” he retorts sharply, and she feels him get a better hold of himself. He’s not as surprised anymore, and he’s obviously not going to let her shove him again. He stops moving backwards, and then holds his ground. “You don’t know _who_ I am or what I’m really like. What you saw in there was a _fraction_ of what I am or what I’m capable of.”  
  
“I’ve seen enough!” she snaps. She’s heard this before, from Finn, and she knew how that ended. Rey isn’t going to let it be said twice, especially by the man who nearly killed that friend. “You’re a cold-blooded murderer and you _know_ it! You keep calling people traitors when you _know_ that you betrayed people that actually cared about you! You killed your own father! I know that has to mean something to you, but you can’t even say that anymore, can you?”  
  
She doesn’t expect to see his eyes brim with tears, and the pure, unadulterated conflict that fills his expression. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.  
  
“What happened to you?” she finally asks. Her voice cracks on it, and she doesn’t care. She wants to know. She _needs_ to know.  
  
And he won’t tell her. She feels it the moment it happens, an impenetrable wall goes up around him and he just shuts down. What replaces the vulnerable man that stood before her is Kylo Ren, anger starting to burn within him, the Dark side at his beck and call. There won’t be an answer, just like she thought.  
  
“Nothing,” he says, and his voice is like stone. “Nothing happened.”  
  
Rey wants to reach out again, but she won’t find cracks in the facade this time. He’ll build better walls to keep her out and to keep himself pent in. What worked before won’t work again, and she finds herself horribly disappointed by it.  
  
They retreat from each other again as darkness crawls back over the camp. Back to being repelling magnets, not speaking, keeping a distance. He stays on his crate and stares over the swamp, his mind completely blocked off from her.  
  
Rey goes back to her bedroll, and this time, she doesn’t grasp her lightsaber. She just falls into an uneasy sleep mostly forced by pure exhaustion. Her dreams are  plagued with images of a scared little boy begging someone to come back. The similarity isn’t lost, even in her dreams.  
  
\---  
  
It takes even longer for Kylo to sleep. He feels numb and cold inside, shaken despite trying to control himself. She got in farther than anyone ever had, and he feels _it_ , far more prominently than before. What ever she left, he’s having a hard time destroying. It spreads in him like a virus, a little beam of light she left like a seed inside of him. He screws his eyes shut and tries to fight it, to smoke it out or immolate it or do _anything_ to rid himself of it. He even twists his right wrist, trying to will the pain to do the work for him.  
  
And then, he begs.  
  
_Grandfather, please. Show me again so I can rid myself of this._  
  
There is no answer, and it’s literal _agony._  
  
Two days is not enough time. He’s going to fall apart before then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> BONUS:
> 
> Kylo sits on his crate, apparently deep in meditation. His breathing is spaced out, and his signature in the Force suggests that at the moment, he's more mindful, focused. Only after a moment does Rey notice the thin black wire trailing down from one ear. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she reaches over and tugs it. The black object falls out, and the noise that comes from it is unlike anything she's ever heard.
> 
> "CRAAAAWLING IIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIN. THESE WOOOOOOUNDS THEY WIIIIIIILL NOT HEAAAAAAAAL!" a tinny voice shrieks, accompanied by the loudest most confusing cacophony of noise this side of outright warfare.
> 
> "What the actual _fuck_ ," Rey says as Kylo scrambles to put the earbud back in.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy wah, sorry this took longer than normal. I've been working around a family emergency so that kind of put a bit of a dent in things. Thankfully, most of it's been resolved and you're all just as awesome as ever. Like, honestly, thank you so much from the bottom of my little garbage-filled heart for being so incredible and lovely. If I could, I would pay off all of your student loans. Until then, let's hug it out in the communal hugging waste pit. <3
> 
> I also got my filthy little paws on most of the canon literature for SWTFA, so expect some references to it here and there. I do have more to read and check out, but hopefully what's put into this comes out as semi-canon? Maybe? I have no idea. I'm more invested in the cost and means of acquiring a life-sized Asha Ren cardboard cut out that I can kiss before I go to bed.
> 
> Anyway, have fun with this and again, thank you for being so patient and awesome. I've been all smiley reading your reviews. You've made my trashy little heart grow three sizes. <333
> 
> ALSO! 500shadesofblue was awesome and made an absolutely amazing playlist for this fic! Go have a [listen!](http://8tracks.com/500shadesofblue/purest-place) And there's an [Anakin one](http://8tracks.com/500shadesofblue/raging-sun)!

Rey wakes up on the second day of their cohabitation feeling like someone’s hit her over the head with a hydrospanner. Her dreams were plagued with abstract visions of what she saw in Kylo’s soul. Although she feels considerably more rested, and in that vein, better than the day before, at the same time she feels worse somehow.  
  
The morning comes, perhaps appropriately, with a storm. She wakes to a low growl of thunder and sees the whole camp cast in an eerie blue-gray fog. Sitting up, she looks around and finds that Kylo’s taken the liberty of making himself a more livable space with some extra supplies. His crate is pushed under the nose of the X-wing, a gray tarp held magnetically in place to form a lean-to. She sees him laying underneath it, only the back of his head visible, but she feels that he’s awake as well.  
  
Their argument comes to mind immediately, and it leaves her feeling completely unsure of how to proceed. She won’t apologize to him, and she knows she’s in the right for it. There’s nothing to say sorry for. Still, they have to coexist at least for a little while longer, and it isn’t going to do anything for either of them if they don’t say a word to each other. A large portion of the problem is that nearly every word she _wants_ to say is going to come out as another argument.  
  
She distracts herself from the issue for a moment by pulling her hair back into a loose bun, not wanting to fight the humidity and the rain by trying to do anything more ornate. There’s plenty of other things to do, mostly involving washing away her morning mouth and eating something. She still has to pack for their trip tomorrow, and again, that involves talking to him.  
  
With how the rain is pouring, there won’t be much room for exercise or lightsaber training. She’ll meditate, like she does every day, but she’s going to have to fill her day with something else.  
  
Leia had the forethought to give her some rain gear before she left, and Rey’s enormously grateful, considering that was never a thought on Jakku. She pulls a black rain jacket from the bottom of her duffel bag and shoulders into it, pulling the hood up over her head and then tugging her boots on. Then she walks over to the crate containing the rations, ignoring the feeling of her boots squelching in the mud.  
  
Her hands work through the process of making some kind of high-nutrient porridge mixture, complete with pieces of dried fruit. It smells decent, compared to some of the other military-grade rations that either have no smell at all or smell like they’ve been sitting in a musty cellar for fifty years. Not that Rey’s picky; far from it. She’s eaten far worse than what the Resistance offered her, and she knows better than to shrug off any food in any format.  
  
While the porridge heats itself, Rey takes a self-heating thermajug from the crate and pours in water and a rootgrass tea mixture, and then shakes it until she feels the jug warm itself. By the time she does that, she hears the crate beside her creaking as Kylo moves. Naturally, he doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t bother to look at him.  
  
“Morning,” she says by way of greeting, and it sounds more flinty than she intends.  
  
He doesn’t reply, but she feels him watching her as she stirs the porridge. The silence gets heavy, so she turns the opposite way to look at S4-M1, tucked underneath the cabin portion of the X-wing. “S4-M1, can you give me an atmosphere assessment?”  
  
The droid chirps in affirmation before giving a readout. _Heavy rain and storms expected until tomorrow morning. Ambient temperature remains static. Atmospheric conditions remain breathable for humans, a nitrogen-rich oxygen mixture fit for human life and function._  
  
So they really are stuck there until tomorrow. Rey sighs at this and takes her bowl and thermajug back to the tree, setting both down on the ground before she sits cross-legged on the bedroll.  
  
She’s nearly halfway through her breakfast when he finally gets up and starts going through the ration kit. He stands there getting utterly drenched, and Rey reminds herself that he’s still without supplies or extra clothing. That in mind, it isn’t pity so much as necessity that she gets up and walks back out into the rain, crouching beside S4-M1 under the X-wing and unlatching the cargo bay. There’s still a flight suit in there, as well as the helmet she used to fly to Dagobah. She reaches for the untouched flight jacket and pulls it out. The thing is old, without a doubt, and meant for someone of greater stature than her. It’s dark brown with an orange Rebel insignia sewn onto each shoulder. The design is similar to the one Finn and Poe share, but definitely aged. It certainly smells like it’s been sitting in a cargo bay for awhile.  
  
Rey steps out from under the X-wing and wordlessly hands the jacket to Kylo. He doesn’t take it, just stares at it like she’s offering him a bantha gizzard instead.  
  
“What is that for?” he asks.  
  
“For wearing,” she replies, shaking her arm at him. “Do you need a lesson on how clothes work?”  
  
He ignores the jab. “What makes you think I need it?”  
  
“If you like getting completely soaked, then I’ll put it back.”  
  
Another long moment of staring, and then he hesitantly takes it from her, holding it out with a look of undisguised disgust. “This thing is an antique,” he says, but shoulders it on regardless. It doesn’t look _bad_ on him, and she allows herself to admit that. Again, he could pass for an X-wing pilot if she didn’t know better. It’s a little short due to his height, but it fits across his shoulders perfectly. He adjusts it, and then wrinkles his nose.  
  
“It’s been sitting in a cargo bay for a few decades, I _know,_ ” she retorts before he has a chance to say anything.  
  
He doesn’t thank her, and she doesn’t expect him to. He goes back to making breakfast, and before she turns back to go finish hers, she sees him roll his shoulders.  
  
It’s back to silence again as he gets back on the crate, ducking under the tarp. All she can see of him now is the barest flash of orange from the emblem on his jacket.  
  
Once she finishes her porridge, she wipes out the bowl with the corner of her shirt and then puts it out in the rain to collect water. It’s a good a day as any to get some washing done and to use the hygiene kit, especially if her hike tomorrow is long. She sips at her tea while she waits, the bitterness of it making her clear her throat.  
  
She thinks about the hike, about what it’s going to entail. She doesn’t know how far they have to walk, how long this trip is going to be, and what they’re going to find. When she reaches out and touches on the threads of Dagobah’s signature in the Force, she knows that it has to do with the Dark side, but there’s nothing more that she can glean from it. It’s a source of darkness, of fear. When she tries to picture it, all she sees is a swirling black void.  
  
Rey remembers Master Luke briefly talking about something similar. He said he went to a place where he had to face something frightening, that it was key to his advancement as a Jedi. It changed him, he said, and if she went, it would change her, too. The Force would take her there, but there was no guarantee it would follow her past a certain point.  
  
Not for the first time, she wonders what it will do to Kylo. Even though he’s blocked her out, she can still feel him like a dark tempest nearby. He and the storm that thunders overhead are remarkably similar. If he goes to this place, what will he be like when he returns? Or will it do anything to him at all? If it’s a source of the Dark side, is it something he could take advantage of? Will it make him more powerful?  
  
No, something tells her. _Not necessarily. It doesn’t work like that._  
  
Luke never said it made him a _stronger_ Jedi. It just changed something, allowed him to advance, let him see something he might not have seen otherwise.  
  
Still, aside from not knowing what the place _is_ , she still has to deal with the fact that she and Kylo Ren are going to have to travel somewhere together, possibly for an extended period of time. They’re barely talking, and only when it’s a necessity. Honestly, she wishes that she was staying with _anyone_ else. Poe or Finn would be wonderful. It wouldn’t be awkward, and she certainly wouldn’t be bored. A conversation with them would be the farthest thing from the razor’s edge she has with Kylo.  
  
The bowl fills up quickly, so she occupies herself with that to keep her mind off of anything else. Distractions are few and far between, so she’ll take what she can get. She pulls the bowl close to her and scoops some water up in her hands before scrubbing at her face. She has no idea what she looks like right now, and the bet is safely on dirty. Not that she particularly cares. In fact, after what Kylo said, she’s more tempted to scoop the mud up from outside and streak it across her face. But the dirt is starting to get irritating and she’s got a hike to do, which is just going to add another couple layers of sweat and dirt onto her. Better to slough it off now while she has the chance.  
  
Rey wipes down her arms and what’s exposed of her legs before she gets up and gets the hygiene kit from one of the smaller crates. It’s very basic, meant more for short-term stays on desolate planets, rather than the weeks she’s set to stay. It’s military-grade, like everything else, and it shows in the simplicity. Almost everything is sonic technology to reduce the need for water. There is a small bar of sterile-smelling soap tucked away, and a tiny object similar to a pill that, once dunked in water, expands to become a functioning washcloth. Rey takes both and drops the washcloth into the water, watching it grow as she rubs the soap onto her face. It burns a little, but cleaning it off already makes her feel better.  
  
She cleans as much of herself as she can, given the lack of both privacy and the means to be more thorough. If there were some sort of hot spring, it would be excellent, but like everything else Rey’s done, she makes do with what she has. She does indulge a little by filling the bowl back up and dumping it on her head to scrub at her hair. She uses just a little bit of the soap, but it definitely makes a difference. Once she rinses it, she leaves her hair down to try to dry it, although it won’t be fully dry unless the sun comes out and the humidity eases.  
  
She closes the kit and puts it back in the crate, and then that’s it. She can meditate, or she can sit there and do next to nothing. The third, and possibly impossible option, is try to talk to Kylo again. Trying to get into his mind won’t work twice, at least for awhile, but the idea of trying to actually talk to him makes her anxious.  
  
There’s not much else she can do, though, and tomorrow is going to be far harder if she doesn’t try.  
  
She puts the hood of the rain jacket up over her damp hair and steps back out into the torrent. Kylo is still tucked away, virtually unmoving behind the tarp, so she walks around to the other side of the X-wing, walking along the muddy shore between the tiny peninsula of land they have and the bog.  
  
He’s sitting cross-legged on the crate, partially hidden away in the shadow of the tarp, and his eyes follow her warily. He radiates mistrust, and she finds that ironic. Rey walks under the semi-shelter of the X-wing’s nose, her hands braced against the edge of the crate. She stares at him, and she probably looks ridiculous, like a drowned womp rat.  
  
He narrows his eyes at her. “Can I help you?”  
  
“Yes. Can we talk?”  
  
She can _feel_ him say no, but he doesn’t physically say anything. Then, “Depends.”  
  
“On?”  
  
“What you want to talk about.”  
  
“Yesterday,” she says.  
  
“Then no, we can’t talk.”  
  
He _would_ be stubborn about it, and she feels a wall like duracrete form between them. She may not be well-versed in how some people work, since her upbringing was apparently unorthodox compared to others, but she knows well enough that he’s acting like a moody teenager. She’s seen enough of them at Niima Outpost, usually accompanying trader parents and complaining about the heat and the sand.  
  
“Why not?” she asks, and she edges it with a demanding tone. She doesn’t quite put the Force into it, but it’s tempting.  
  
“There’s nothing to say,” he returns, his arms crossed over his chest. “You said enough, anyway.”  
  
She bristles despite herself, and her hands clench on the edge of the crate. “You know, I would think it would just be manners to tell someone what’s going on after they kidnap them and nearly kill their friends. I think you owe it to me.”  
  
“If you’re trying to use a mind trick on me, it’s not going to work.” He sounds unsure.  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
“And I don’t owe you anything.”  
  
“Apparently that applies to everyone else in the galaxy,” she says, honestly a little surprised at how much of a bite she puts into it.  
  
His anger is already welling up again, and the wall between them trembles. “You’re very good at talking about things that you don’t have a clue about,” he says, and he’s already seething.  
  
Rey wouldn’t call herself a demolitions expert, as much as she’s learned from scavenging and working around explosive things, but she knows a catalyst when she sees it, and she knows volatile materials. Kylo’s temper is very volatile, she’s apparently a suitable catalyst by herself. It could work to her advantage. He’s melted metal restraints off, so he could be the one to shatter his own wall.  
  
“You owe me an interrogation,” she says, leaning her elbows on the crate and giving him a level stare. “Seeing as how you tried to kill me last time.”  
  
She sees his eyes go to the lightsaber at her hip, and then back at her. Behind him, S4-M1 gives a warning beep.  
  
“I said I don’t owe you--”  
  
“I’d say you do, this time at least.”  
  
Something shifts in his expression, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. She doesn’t know if he’s afraid now, because the maelstrom of emotion is fairly well-hidden behind the wall, but there is something in his face that comes across like hesitation.  
  
“I don’t know what I could tell you that would make you satisfied,” he grinds out.  
  
Very little, she has to admit. He can’t just brush off everything he’s done by way of a simple explanation. But for their collective sake, she’s willing to listen.  
  
“You’re right, but I want to know anyway,” she replies. Lightning crackles across the sky and the downpour around them is renewed. She can feel mud splatter up the back of her calves from the raindrops, and it helps her take her next step. She crawls up onto the crate, opposite of him, and it still leaves a decent length between them. He’s uncomfortable, clearly, but he doesn’t say anything.  
  
“Who told you to kill me?” she starts, resting her elbows on her knees as she hunches under the X-wing’s base. “Your leader, right?”  
  
“No one told me to kill you.”  
  
“You said ‘dead or alive’. You tried to kill me, but you had other options. Someone told you to do it,” she says, keeping her voice as steady as possible. It wants to tremble, and her chest tightens at the thought. The last time she tried to approach this, it ended badly. Twice, for the record.  
  
He looks her over, his eyes flitting back and forth like he’s trying to take her all in. Rey doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and he doesn’t seem to find it. He stares down at his lap instead. “It isn’t so simple to explain,” he says, his voice low and quiet.  
  
“Those orders seemed simple enough,” she replies.  
  
“The execution of it, yes,” he concedes. “Nothing is that simple in practice, though.”  
  
“You’re avoiding my question. Who told you to do it?”  
  
He sits almost perfectly still, save for the rise and fall of his chest. “The Supreme Leader. You’re right.” She thinks he winces at that.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You’re Luke Skywalker’s apprentice.”  
  
“So were you.”  
  
He looks up again, and something like anger crosses his face. “Not me,” he says stiffly. “And even then, that was a long time ago.”  
  
Rey remembers the moment on the oscillator’s bridge, Kylo telling his father that his son was weak, that he was dead. He still seems convinced that this is the case. “He just wants the Jedi dead, then?” she asks, even though she knows without a doubt that his answer his only half-truth. There’s far more to that story, but the fact he’s saying anything at all is a small victory.  
  
“Eradicated. It’s been a long-standing goal,” Kylo replies.  
  
That’s another thing she’s learned, even though she’s only had a little time to absorb the information. There were similar attempts in the past, organized ones, fueled by governments and organizations using propaganda and anything else at their disposal. Through them, the Jedi would become a myth, the Force like a legend. They would paint them as tyrants, as terrorists, as what ever they wanted to further their own interests. And it worked, to a point.  
  
Then Luke Skywalker appeared, and the galaxy changed.  
  
“I thought you wanted to get to Master Luke directly,” she says, and she feels a chill underneath her skin. “Why come here? Why not find him? There were plenty of ways to do it.”  
  
That was what she had pointed out before, that she wasn’t the only source of the route to Luke. If Kylo Ren couldn’t get the map out of her the first time, why would he try again?  
  
“You’ve gotten more attention recently,” Kylo says, and it sounds like he says it through his teeth. “Do you think it was completely unnoticed that kidnapping you coincided with the attack on the base? That you managed to escape without explanation?”  
  
“Not enough to matter. I thought the First Order had bigger problems,” she says, frowning.  
  
“They do. _We_ don’t. Politics and the order of the galaxy fall into their lot.”  
  
“And I fall into your leader’s.”  
  
“Everything falls into his, but you became part of a larger focus, whether you intended to or not.”  
  
That sends a chill through her. Leia had mentioned this leader before, although she hesitated to elaborate. All Rey could glean from the General was that this leader, _Snoke_ , had done something to twist her son, to corrupt him. Now he apparently stood at the head of this new Sith, or Empire, or what face the Dark side took. Both Luke and Leia had told her about Darth Sidious and his control over Darth Vader, and the similarities weren’t lost.  
  
“ _Why?_ ” she asks. “If he says he wants me dead or alive, but he wants every Jedi eradicated, what’s the point? What is he after?”  
  
“You’d be a powerful ally,” Kylo says, but his voice is quieter, more hesitant. She thinks of what he said to her on Starkiller, how he could show her how to use the Force, how he eased off of her just enough for her to make a decision. It’s something he’s considered before, although his attack on her when he first came to Dagobah showed that he wasn’t keen on making that mistake twice.  
  
Still, it makes the anger grow hot in her, and it takes a good deal of self-control to ease it back. “He thinks he can just do that? Like I’m going to turn sides because he _asked?_ ”  
  
Kylo lets out something like a sigh and a laugh. “No, and that’s why he allowed the order for you to be killed.”  
  
“You seemed more than willing to follow that order.”  
  
When she says that, she feels something shift again in the Force. For the briefest moment, she feels _him._ He’s angry, but it seems self-directed. “I made a mistake before,” he says hollowly.  
  
“Letting me live?”  
  
He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no. He just keeps his gaze square on his lap.  
  
There’s so much more he isn’t saying, but Rey has to at least be satisfied that she got anything out of him at all. There’s certainly a distinct feeling that he’s nearing the end of his willingness to speak. They sit in silence, listening to the rain beat down on the camp.  
  
His temper didn’t explode, and the wall is still up. If anything, he seems defeated, or at least subdued. If the wall doesn’t get demolished outright, it’s entirely possible to chip away at it until it falls.  
  
\---  
  
The rest of the day passes quietly and with little event. Kylo stays in his makeshift shelter after she leaves, even though his own thoughts are pure turmoil. He can’t decide if he’s told her too much, or if he shouldn’t have said anything at all. Something in him still stings in her presence, like he was burnt and she scoured off the scabs and left a wound wide open.  
  
He didn’t tell her everything, of course, and she knows that. But he didn’t necessarily lie. There’s no reason at this point, he figures. Every time she’s questioned him about anything, it’s ended in a fight. Then again, fighting seems to be their dominant exchange, so it should be some sort of relief that they had a civil conversation at all.  
  
Except it isn’t. He didn’t come all the way to Dagobah to converse. No part of his mission included divulging its details and making nice with her. He certainly didn’t intend to give her even an inkling of the reason why the Supreme Leader wanted her either dead or alive. It’s at such a volatile time as well, with the First Order still reeling from the destruction of Starkiller and the Resistance gaining strength. Kylo knows that people like Hux place a good portion of the blame on him, for not just getting the droid when he had the chance, and instead bringing _her_ on board. This girl, the equivalent of a nightmare to not only him but for their whole purpose. She’s like a solid beam of sunlight, and nothing has tarnished her. Nothing _will_ at this rate.  
  
He still has to take her somehow. He refuses to fail again.  
  
He tries to sleep on it after choking down another two swallows of Bactade, but his mind isn’t keen on resting. It’s as tempestuous as Dagobah’s weather itself. It focuses on dozens of different things, like the ache in his ribs and his arm, the fact that he feels like he’s never going to be properly dry again, the weight of the flight jacket on his shoulders, the ghosts, the thought that he’s not going to be able to leave this planet on his own terms, and the girl.  
  
Of course, she somehow seems perfectly content. He knows she washed herself earlier, and even for formerly living in the driest wasteland imaginable, she seems to adapt fairly well to Dagobah. He hasn’t heard her complain once about the conditions, even when she’s drenched and sloshing her way through the mud.  
  
In the evening, after managing to doze for a few hours, he hears her rustling around in the crates as she packs for their journey. She’s silent as she does so, but her mind is far from quiet. He can hear her thoughts unwittingly projected, since she’s refrained from guarding them ever since he shut her out.  
  
While she works, she thinks about the music from Jakku, rarely heard but unforgettable. He can hear the deep thrum of percussion and the harmonic whine of some stringed instrument, and then a woman singing in a language he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t need to know the language to get the meaning, as Rey supplies it with images of the desert, the dunes red and violet in the setting sun. Jakku’s single moon is low in the sky, pale yellow against a horizon of deep purple and blue. In the dimming light, a single figure walks across the expanse, dressed in white and carrying a threadbare bag over their shoulder.  
  
Kylo’s eyes close on their own accord as he watches this projected image. His breathing evens out as the figure in white walks to the top of a dune and looks down, seeing a small settlement tucked away, firelight illuminating multicolored awnings. The singing woman holds a note there, like an exaltation.  
  
When the figure gets to the bottom of the dune, the sky is alight with thousands of stars, and for the first time in what seems like eons, Kylo sleeps and dreams of nothing.  
  
\---  
  
Morning comes with more rain, although the worst part of the storm has passed. Rey wakes early, when the sky is still dim and the clouds favor dark gray. The entire camp is pocked in deep, muddy puddles, and after donning her rain jacket and her rucksack, she hops around them. She grabs a high-calorie nutrition bar from the ration pack and then turns to the tarp on the X-wing. Kylo’s completely asleep for once, and an inner debate arises on how to wake him. If it were Finn or really anyone else, she would just shake them awake. Touching Kylo doesn’t seem optimal, so she reaches over and knocks on the crate.  
  
She’s met with a weary groan before he turns his head just enough to see her. “What?” he manages, voice deep and groggy.  
  
“Time to head out,” she says, gesturing to the bag slung across her back. “We need to leave now before the humidity gets bad.”  
  
Although she can’t see his entire face, it’s not hard to guess how he feels about it. He slowly pushes himself up with his good arm and scrubs at his face with his other hand. His hair is matted on one side and there’s a crease from the crate on one cheek. Rey resists a snort before she tosses him the ration, watching his eyes go wide as he nearly misses it. She doesn’t miss the glare he shoots her way.  
  
She turns to S4-M1 who is sitting next to the largest root of the gnarltree. “S4-M1, you watch the camp for me, okay? I have a commlink in my bag if anything bad happens.”  
  
S4-M1 lets out a series of beeps and chirps, each lowering in pitch. _Are you going to be okay? Is it safe? Should I come with you?_  
  
“I’m fine. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”  
  
The droid vocalizes their doubts, but acquiesces reluctantly.  
  
Rey then gives herself another onceover to make sure she has everything on hand. Her lightsaber is clipped to her side, and her mind instantly goes to the other one in the crate. It really would be safer if both of them were armed, but this is also _Kylo Ren_ , and any time she’s seen him with that thing, it’s never turned out well. She can’t trust him fully, even though she knows she’s more than capable of defending herself. The fact still stands that they’re enemies stuck at an impasse, and arming him would either mean their collective safety in an unknown place, or him potentially turning on her. His arm and wrist are still broken, although she doesn’t think he would be utterly useless or have it so that he couldn’t fight without his dominant hand.

In the end, she puts her faith in her own abilities and in the ghosts that seem to favor her, and she opens up the crate. She’s not completely foolish, though, so she clips both lightsabers to her belt, his cinched tightly on it so he can’t take it by the Force alone. Or if he did, it would be a struggle.  
  
When she turns around, he’s standing there, his boots completely coated in mud, and still wearing the flight jacket. His eyes go to the two weapons tied at her hip and he frowns. “Really?”  
  
“Really,” she replies, tapping them with her right hand. “I don’t know what we’re going to see out there, so if it comes down to it, I’ll _give_ it to you.”  
  
He tries to glare, but given the fact he’s covered in mud, clearly exhausted, and getting drenched, it has almost no power to it. “I could take it if I wanted,” he says.  
  
And Rey _smiles_ , then pats both sabers again. “No, you couldn’t.”  
  
She turns away from him and can _feel_ him glowering at her. Rey focuses instead on finding that signature of the Dark side, the void that Yoda instructed her to find. It’s difficult at first, as Dagobah’s network of life is like a net in front of her eyes. Then she feels the trace of it, just barely.  
  
“This way,” she says, and starts walking through the mud as best she can. She hears Kylo trail behind her, and feels the discontent radiating off of him. Thankfully, he stays quiet.  
  
To a point, the way is familiar. It takes her by the outcropping and a little ways past it, as far as she was willing to explore in the first few days on Dagobah. Then, it starts to shift to unfamiliarity. As the sky lightens, they’re faced with endless swamps and bogs, stagnant gray ponds, gnarltrees that rise to impossible heights, and a fog that won’t clear away. The rain is still relentless.  
  
She only glances behind her once to see Kylo, utterly soaked and looking like he would rather be anywhere but Dagobah. Some of his hair is plastered to his forehead, and water seems to drip off every available surface. Even the leather of the flight jacket seems to be doing nothing for him. He trudges along, and as she turns away, she thinks how strange it is, to have this hammer of the First Order, practically the blade of the operation itself, sloshing through the mud in her trail.  
  
The enormity hasn’t escaped her at all. In fact, the fear of it is still a weight in her stomach, although she’s done well to cover it and distract herself from its constance. The only reason he follows her at all, or listens to any order she has, is because he has no other choice. If it were the reverse, she would be terrified. Her imagination gets the better of her for a moment, imagining being in his place with broken bones and her weapon hanging from his belt, completely out of her reach. She wonders if he’s fostering any resentment towards her, and what he might potentially do once he gets the chance.  
  
“You think too loud,” he mutters behind her, cutting into her reverie.  
  
Rey turns again and sees him staring down at his feet, mindful of roots and mud. She quickly turns back and does the same before she trips. “Then stop trying to listen,” she chastises, stepping over a particularly prominent root.  
  
“I wasn’t trying,” he says, sounding annoyed. “You’re projecting.”  
  
At the very least, that means he heard what she thought, and thus picked up on her fears.  
  
“You can think of this as revenge, if you want,” he says, making it obvious he’s not tuning out. “You seemed pretty bent on that earlier.”  
  
If she wasn’t busy trying to navigate her way around hazards, she’d reel back and glare at him. Instead, she glares down at a hapless lizard who quickly skitters out of her way. “I’m not getting revenge on anything. I don’t _do_ that.”  
  
She can almost _hear_ him roll his eyes. “Right. Jedi. Very noble.”  
  
“And you’re admitting you did something wrong,” she’s quick to point out.  
  
“I’m admitting that our techniques may be seen as violent, yes,” he replies, and it sounds like he’s mocking her again. “Maybe unorthodox, depending on who you’re comparing it to.”  
  
“Torture and mass murder are _considered_ violent?”  
  
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Interrogation methods vary from organization to organization. How do you think the Resistance deals with their prisoners of war?”  
  
“More civilly than the First Order,” she replies frostily. “And they don’t use the Force to extract anything.”  
  
He lets out what might be a laugh, but the humor is completely drained from it. “It really is astounding how little you know.”  
  
She doesn’t pause in her walk, but her steps are stiff so she winds up stomping more than walking. “I know enough to know right from wrong,” she manages, her tone tight.  
  
“And what, you think the Jedi have just been pinnacles of goodness and mercy?” he asks snidely, and she inwardly hopes he trips into the bog. It’s the very least he deserves. “Did you learn nothing of their history?”  
  
In truth, no, she knows very little. She hasn’t gone into some ancient library and pored over tomes of great Jedi wisdom or anything so dramatic. What she’s had is Master Luke and the ghosts of Dagobah, and even then, her education has been limited. On the island, she visited the oldest of the temples, made of rough-hewn stone and still echoing with the beginnings of the Jedi Order. She didn’t meditate there to gain knowledge from the Jedi masters of old. She meditated to learn about the Force, of its flow and its changing nature.  
  
What she knows is that most of the Jedi are gone, and as far as anyone knows, all of the Jedi that followed the old ways are dead. _Jedi_ is just a word now, and to some, it’s an empty one. She knows they were powerful, and it doesn’t take the presence of a ghost to tell her that. But it isn’t hard to imagine beings similar to Qui-Gon or Yoda, powerful enough to transcend death itself. In their spirits, she felt peace.  
  
Not all, though. She knows for a fact that Anakin Skywalker was far from the proper definition of a Jedi. He was strong, he was _very_ powerful, he had all the makings of a Jedi so legendary that thousands, if not millions would want to walk in his path. Yet, Darth Vader existed, and his legacy manifested not as a legion of faithful Jedi, but as people like the man walking behind her. Steeped in darkness, thriving on their own pain and anger, chasing a shadow.  
  
Anakin Skywalker’s spirit was not at complete peace, but still, he walks with the Jedi after death.  
  
“No, I know they weren’t all good,” she finally answers. “And I’m sure there’s plenty of things you could say to try to convince me that they were in the wrong. But there aren’t any real Jedi left, are there?” _Because of people like you,_ goes unsaid, but she makes sure it’s amplified in her mind.  
  
“There aren’t any left because for all you could call the Sith or the First Order monsters, the Jedi were excellent at doing the same and hiding it under a veil of lies, saying that it was for a righteous cause. Mass murder isn’t limited to one side.” He says it with so much heat that it singes his very words. This is something he truly believes, perhaps fanatically. General Organa had said that he became obsessed with the deeds of his grandfather, and although Rey didn’t research Anakin’s history further, she knows that he set some truly terrible events in motion, the aftershocks of which could still be felt.  
  
And two results of these events now walk this muddy route on Dagobah. Anakin Skywalker’s grandson, twisted by the Dark side, following a path that should never have been followed, that was abandoned by Vader himself. And Rey, learning from the Jedi’s teachings, still hearing the wisdom of masters long dead, now one of the last in an extremely endangered breed, her own life marked purely for that reason.  
  
It hardly escapes her how astounding the difference is between the two sides, just by name alone.  
  
“I know what you’re trying to say,” she says, frowning and adjusting the weight of the pack on her shoulder. The two lightsabers at her belt clink against each other. “But none of that changes what’s happening now. I don’t need a Jedi master to tell me that the things you’ve done are wrong. And you certainly don’t have to drill me on history to prove that somehow, it’s right.”  
  
“I’m not trying to--” He pauses immediately, and she can tell that she’s inadvertently caught him in his own argument. _Not trying to prove that it’s right,_ is what he was going to say. She can feel that even with the one-sided wall between them. Perhaps wisely, he decides to stay silent, possibly to reassess so he can argue better later.  
  
“Listen,” she sighs, turning her head slightly to address him. “We can argue all you want after we get to... wherever we’re going. But for right now, I don’t want to hear about how it’s fine if you torture people and that vaporizing the entire Republic was necessary. You’re clearly very set in your opinion.”  
  
It’s quiet, so much so that she almost misses it, but there’s the barest whisper in her mind. _I didn’t want all of them to die_. The thought moves like mist through the crack in the wall, and she realizes that he didn’t mean for her to hear. It makes her chest feel tight, and she has to clear her throat to ease the strain.  
  
“Fine,” he says, forcing arrogance to cover up that one small vulnerability that she accidentally caught.  
  
It’s a very small victory, and perhaps a painfully-won one, but it’s a victory nonetheless.  
  
And they keep walking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Next time on Ren and Rey's 2016 Summer Dagobah Road Trip: Kylo takes a wrong turn off the highway and they end up having to stay the night at an intergalactic truck stop. There they meet the enigmatic Mandalorian trucker known only as 'Papa Al'. Will the duo ever get to their vacation destination? How much sunscreen is that boy going to need? Why does Papa Al keep saying 'you got a purty mouth' every five minutes? Stay tuned!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not me attempting a mind trick. This is absolutely not me telling you to ignore the fact this took nearly a week to post. You will totally accept the fact that I'm a big weenie and you will nod and smile and say, "Oh hey, DJ's super cool and never late posting anything!" and pretend that chapter seven was posted like two days ago. You will totally marvel at the fact that I'm such a speedy writer, oh my gosh.
> 
> Also, in my humble defense, I was in the middle of the emptiness of Ohio for three days. There's no inspiration in the middle of Ohio. 
> 
> See? No mind trick. :D I'm a very trustworthy individual.
> 
> ~~And if you look to your left, you'll see me screaming and giggling like a total moron about these stats and reviews. Oh my good golly gosh.~~
> 
> [AND ART. THERE'S ART. I'M BESIDE MYSELF BECAUSE THERE IS ART.](http://whatupwitches.tumblr.com/post/137124234184)

Naturally, there are very few similarities between Dagobah and Jakku, but Rey has certainly found one. Regardless of the planet or the climate, there’s a period of time in the late afternoon when the heat becomes outright unbearable. She thinks she prefers Jakku, as it’s a dry heat. Dagobah’s soaking wet, and there’s no reprieve.   
  
She’s not sure of the exact hour, and it doesn’t particularly matter. All she knows is that they’ve been walking for a few hours, and slowly but surely, the heat starts to become oppressive. She sweats more and has to take more draws from her canteen. Eventually, the rain eases off and she’s able to take off the rain jacket, tying the sleeves as a belt around her waist. Removing one layer doesn’t do much in the grand scheme, although when she glances back at Kylo, she sees he’s done the same thing with the flight jacket.   
  
Finally, Kylo’s the first one to snap. “Of all the planets in the entire galaxy, you had to go to this one,” he mutters.   
  
Rey rolls her eyes. “You didn’t have to follow me here,” she replies, although inwardly, she agrees. Dagobah was never meant to be populated by humans, and it certainly didn’t have a future in tourism. “Honestly, I’m surprised Master Luke didn’t make you come here when you trained under him.”  
  
She feels him flinch through their proximity bond, but he shoves it down quickly. “He mentioned it,” he concedes, but his voice is rough. “I wasn’t all that old when I left, though. I doubt he wanted to take a child to a place like this.”  
  
Rey frowns and thinks on that for a moment. Luke and Leia only said he was ‘young’ when he turned to the Dark side, but neither of them specified his exact age. “How old were you?” she asks, her curiosity getting the better of her.  
  
“Almost fifteen,” he says so casually that it’s jarring.  
  
Rey can’t imagine it. He would have been not much younger than herself, only by a few years. When she was fifteen, all she wanted to do was survive. It makes the difference in their personal experiences that much clearer, and it feels almost alienating.   
  
She wants to ask what caused his fall, what made him think that he should pursue his grandfather’s legacy, but to some degree, she’s afraid of the answer. It’s been bothering her, this deep-seated uneasiness that started on Starkiller when he interrogated her, when she watched him murder his father, when they fought in the frigid darkness. It’s the danger that the Jedi described, this anger and fear that she’s fighting to control. She doesn’t want to hear what caused Kylo’s descent, because she’s afraid to hear what might eventually cause her own.  
  
It also makes her wonder what she’s meant to face at their destination, and if she’s going to change like Master Luke did.   
  
She tries to focus on anything else, on the oppressive heat and the humidity that accompanies it, the way the sweat trails down her face from her hairline, the sound of the two lightsabers on her belt tapping against each other. She focuses on each step she takes, and tries to count the roots and the leaves that she steps over, tries to identify the different creatures that scurry across her path or prowl nearby.   
  
It doesn’t work as well as she’d like. She resorts to thinking beyond Dagobah, thinking in reverse. She imagines flight simulators and goes through mental checklists from manuals that she found in different wreckages on Jakku. Slowly, meticulously, she goes over the schematics for the T-65 X-wing, even though she knows it by heart. The parts that are salvageable are first, as they were the most important. _Energy sensor jammer, four portions. Hydraulic lines for landing gear, one portion. Flight computer with memory drive and capacitors, two portions..._   
  
“Interesting shopping list,” Kylo says, amused.   
  
Rey frowns. “I thought I told you to stop listening.”  
  
“I thought I told you that you were projecting.”  
  
She didn’t think she was. The entire list was so mundane and practiced that it didn’t seem like an important thought at all. “I wasn’t,” she says, using the lowest branch of a tree to keep her balance over a particularly large puddle. “Which means you’re listening.”  
  
“Right, because I like nothing more than listening to you rattle off the prices of parts from an X-wing,” he says dryly. After a moment, she hears him maneuver the same puddle.   
  
To spite him, she actually _does_ project her thoughts. _Targeting computer, one portion. Electromagnetic gyros, three portions._  
  
“You know, I’m going to be very well-educated when I become a scavenger,” he says, only mildly annoyed. Still, she counts it as a point in her favor.   
  
“You wouldn’t last very long,” she quips.   
  
He snorts derisively. “What makes you say that?”  
  
“Too long between meals, no one to boss around, and not being able to be anything but patient,” she says, feeling a bit more bravado now that her enemy is covered in mud and his weapon is in her care. She hoists herself up a small incline with another branch, careful not to lose her foothold in the muck. “I’d say you’d be food for the ripper-raptors within a week.”  
  
He follows her path up the incline, no less gracefully than herself. “Thank you for the assessment. Highly accurate,” he says, tone thick with sarcasm.  
  
They go back to relative silence after that, although Rey’s left musing to herself as she navigates the swamp. This time, she keeps her thoughts quiet, forming a loose imitation of the wall he’s made. She doesn’t actually know how he’d do on Jakku, or really anywhere else. All she can imagine is that he was born and raised in a more affluent setting, like those children she saw at Niima Outpost with doting parents and scorn for the wasteland around them. Then again, General Organa didn’t seem to be the kind of person that would spoil her child. Dote, certainly, but nothing in excess. Yet Kylo had mentioned that Han Solo would have been a disappointment as a father, so she really is left to wonder.   
  
For most of her life, Rey had wished there had been _someone_ at all, anyone who would come to her and hold her in their arms, stroke her hair and tell her how much they loved her. She saw families, even amongst the scavengers, and the pang of jealousy never truly receded. Good families or bad, she just wished she _had_ one. He was right in that she was lonely, that sometimes it kept her awake at night, this gaping chasm inside of her that refused to be filled. There was no real escape, so she had to imagine it, trying to picture a ship coming down in a streak of vapor across the endless blue of the Jakku sky. She would go to the landing strip at the Outpost, and someone would lower the ramp. They would see her, and she imagined she would just _know_. They’d make eye contact and she would run across the sand and into the arms of someone who had come back for her.   
  
It was what kept her marking the days on the wall, one after the other. Her hope may have dwindled, sputtered like a dying flame, but it hadn’t gone out.  
  
It makes it difficult to relate to him on that level. He had a family, and she has no doubt that his parents loved him. While she doesn’t know the whole story, she knows that General Organa sent him to be with her brother, to combat the darkness that had started to take hold and fester. Somewhere, something went wrong, and he left. He never returned to his family, and they never saw him again.   
  
Rey’s family never came back for her, and he never went back to his.  
  
She steps over a wider stretch of gray water and tries to ease back her uncertainty. Then, it’s back to the salvage list. _Power generator, five portions. Power convertors, two for four portions..._  
  
\---  
  
He knows when they get close to their destination.   
  
It’s edging on evening, when the pale gray of daylight starts sinking back into murky blue. The heat recedes in increments, slowly so that it almost isn’t noticeable until he involuntarily shivers from the sweat cooling across his skin. Kylo unties the flight jacket and uses the quilted interior to wipe away the worst of his perspiration from his face and neck. He shrugs the jacket back on, mindful of his arm.  
  
They’ve walked with very little pause throughout the day, stopping only twice for rations and a break. The girl’s determined, he’ll give her that. For being a sand rat, she works her way through the swamp like it’s a second home. Even though he’s felt the tumult of her thoughts throughout the day, she’s been guided by a laser-precise focus the entire time.   
  
Then, as evening sets heavy across Dagobah, he knows exactly what she’s looking for.  
  
It’s one of the sources of the Dark side that he’s felt since he arrived, that he drew upon to steady himself. There’s millions like it across the galaxy, but on a planet like this one, so pure and bathed in Light, it’s far more distinct. It’s concentrated, distilled to this small point on the planet’s face, but only serving as an opening to something larger and darker. He knows it for what it is to her; a _challenge_.   
  
He watches her back as she moves with purpose, knowing that she’s locked onto it now more than she has all day.  
  
It strikes him again how simple it would be for her to turn to the Dark side. He’s felt it simmering in her since their fight on Starkiller. There is anger in her, and he could feel it even when she was remembering her scavenging days, associating parts with portions. There was a whisper of anger when she thought about being cheated, about someone taking more and giving her less. It coincides with loss, with loneliness, with those images he drew upon when he interrogated her and felt that horrible clawing sadness of isolation, felt it so _vividly_ that it seemed like it was his own.   
  
She has all the makings of a powerful ally. She’s strong, talented, courageous, willful, and it all could be amplified if she just had the proper teachings. He thinks that Snoke could help her see this, that he could transform her into something glorious, something that would make the galaxy tremble at her mere presence.  
  
She could be more like Darth Vader than he could.  
  
That thought sends a jerk through him, hot and painful and dangerously close to his core. It aches as it recedes, and leaves him feeling resentful in its place. The girl had given a name to his fear, and now it crashes through him with the precision of a missile. Kylo Ren, a direct descendant of Anakin Skywalker, Vader’s _heir_ , has less potential than this girl. This little scavenging sand dweller of no import, tangled up in the situation by pure coincidence, has the makings of his idol in ways he can’t reach.  
  
The bitterness is acrid as it settles in him. His fists clench and unclench, his right wrist burns and his arm aches. The fact his lightsaber hangs from her belt like a trophy just seems to make it worse, a physical representation of what she’s already unknowingly taken from him.   
  
It isn’t the time to change things just yet. He’s held off this long, mostly under threat, but he’s also noticed that the ghost has been absent since the last time they spoke at the camp. That meaning is harder to divine, but he doesn’t take it has a victory. It just means he has to wait longer, has to learn how to outsmart the dead or work around them, and then he can do what he has to. One way or another, she’s coming with him, and she’s not beating him at his own destiny.  
  
He simmers in this for awhile, until they come to the top of a ridge overlooking an enormous spread of dismal swamp. She stops suddenly, facing the expanse. It’s hard to see in the fading light, but there’s something else out there, inorganic and strange. He hears her take in a deep breath.  
  
“Do you see that?” she whispers, as if someone is going to hear them.  
  
He does. It’s a distance away, but there’s a dark shape that could otherwise be confused for an outcropping of rock at the base of an enormous tree. It’s low to the ground and misshapen, but it’s definitely not natural. The Dark signature doesn’t come from it, but the presence is strong there. Its appearance can’t be coincidence.   
  
Without another word exchanged, the two of them make their way down the ridge.   
  
They slosh and wade through the mud and shallow water until they reach a small peninsula of dry land jutting out into the swamp. By the time they reach the structure, the blue of evening is only growing dimmer. Rey reaches into her bag and pulls out a chemical light, crushing the contents and waiting until the stick glows bright yellow. In its illumination, they see that the structure is some sort of hut. It’s made of packed, dried mud and clearly hasn’t been occupied for some time. Half of the roof is caved in and very little of the structure is intact. There’s clear evidence of animal occupation and what they haven’t ransacked is covered in growth or disintegrated to dust.  
  
Rey shines the chemical light into one of the porthole windows and hums thoughtfully. “I can’t believe anyone could live out here,” she says, turning her head to get a better view. “Not like they’ve been here in awhile.”  
  
Kylo walks around to the other side and examines the hole that must have served as the door. There’s nothing covering it except for encroaching vines. It would take him getting on his hands and knees to go in, and his pride has been wounded enough.   
  
“Good enough to make camp, I think,” she says, walking over to him and looking over the door with the light.   
  
He’s about to protest it, but she’s already crouched down and crawling into the structure. Of _course_ she would. He watches the yellow light move around through the windows before she pokes her head out of one.  
  
“It’s perfectly fine! Nothing’s been in here in ages,” she says, and he _feels_ her laugh at him, even though she doesn’t make a noise.  
  
“I’m not going in there.”  
  
“Why not?” she asks, and it’s a good act at unbridled innocence. “It only has half a roof, but that’s better than nothing!”  
  
That doesn’t really surprise him. He’s seen the reports brought back from Jakku. This is the same girl that willingly lived inside the hollowed-out shell of an AT-AT Walker. Not only did she live inside of it, but she _thrived_. Naturally, it would be the same on Dagobah.  
  
“I’m staying out here,” he says with finality. He’s not going to fold himself up and cram into a hut that can barely fit one human, let alone two.   
  
She eyes him before shrugging. “Suit yourself,” she says, ducking back into the house. He hears her rummaging around before something small comes flying out the window and lands on the ground.  
  
Kylo looks down and finds one of the ration bars. He picks it up and sighs, then walks over to the decimated stump of a tree and leans against it. A foreboding rumble of thunder in the distance does nothing to sway him, at least not yet. He can meditate. He can focus on the well of the Dark side not too far away. He absolutely _will_ not go into that hut, even when he sees something else glowing inside.  
  
In the few minutes they’ve been there, she’s already started a fire.   
  
He takes in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, and then starts on the pitiful excuse for dinner that she’s given him. It’s going to be a very long night.  
  
\---  
  
The space is cramped and crumbling, but it’s something. Rey stares at the fire she’s started in the tiny alcove that serves as a fireplace, and then watches the light play on the curves and cracks in the walls. It’s a strange structure, to say the least. Through the cracks, she can see slivers of metal from the support. The portholes look like the outer rim of a thrust nozzle, and through the baked clay of the floor, she can see what looks like metal grating.   
  
Most of the hut has gone back to nature. Vines and animals rendered most of the furniture to slivers and dust. Still, even with the detritus and rot, it’s not the worst place she’s had to sleep. If anything, she prefers it to the gnarltree. And really, it’s Kylo’s loss, especially when she hears the thunder rolling in. She won’t offer twice, though.   
  
Rey settles in as best she can, pushing aside debris to make a space on the floor.   
  
Meditation does not come easy in this place. The influence of the Dark side is strong, almost strong enough to negate the Light’s influence on her. She doesn’t know if it’s the source of the Dark, Kylo’s presence, or a mix of both. When she tries to focus, it’s like reaching for something in pitch blackness. It makes her feel uneasy, and more often than not, she has to open her eyes and focus on the light of the fire in front of her.   
  
“ _Feel fear, you do. Fear clouds the mind._ ” Yoda’s voice comes to her, but Rey can’t see him. The only lights come from the fire and the chemical light. His voice seems far away, quieter than before. That makes her uneasy, makes her think of the darkness that leeches into this place. She wonders if it interferes with the ghosts’ power, if the Dark is overriding the Light somehow.  
  
“What is this place?” she asks, keeping her voice down.   
  
“ _My home, this was,_ ” he replies, and it’s like a whisper. She tries to cling onto it, but it feels like it slips through her fingers. “ _Chose it, I did, to hide from those who would kill me. The Dark side is strong here. You feel it. Cloaked my presence, it did._ ”  
  
“It still does.”  
  
There’s a quiet pause before she feels the tiniest trickle of light in the Force. It isn’t bright like before, just a small speck, like a distant star. It’s enough to make her feel significantly better, to find something in this dark place. “ _You try to prepare yourself,_ ” Yoda says, and his voice seems to come from the starlight. “ _Help you, it will not._ ”  
  
Rey frowns and gazes at the fire, watching it move and stretch high in its alcove. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for,” she admits. “I’ve followed it here, and I know it isn’t too far away, but I don’t know what to expect.”  
  
“ _Nothing,_ ” he says. She can almost see him close his eyes and nod. “ _Expect nothing._ ”  
  
She wants to ask what that means, how it makes _any_ sense. He sent her there with a purpose, and the other Jedi concurred that it would be the right thing to do. She wants to know what sort of thing she was going to face, if it was some sort of immortal monster or an ancient temple or _something._ Having no clues did nothing kind to her nerves.  
  
Except...  
  
Nothing. The lack of anything. The definition of perfect meditation. To see nothing, _feel_ nothing. The absence of all of it, a void unfilled, yet filling.   
  
She can feel Yoda smile. He approves.  
  
Her meditation comes slower, steadily. She doesn’t rely on Yoda’s presence to fall into it. This time, she just envisions the void. She sees this place in her mind, this fount of the Dark side, and then sees it for what it _is._ It is like the Jedi masters that favor her. It’s simply a ghost of something in the past. It takes no real physical form. The only movements it makes take place within the Force, like the rippling of a banner in the wind.   
  
This time, when she meditates, she doesn’t seek the Light. She focuses on the clarity of the Force’s harmony, trillions of voices singing a song that separates the planets and moves them into orbit, rotates moons and summons auroras, keeps everything moving in an endless symphony of sound and light and emptiness.   
  
Rey is used to the high melodies, the twinkling presence of the Light and every life that lives within it. Now, she reaches downward, reaching for the low tones of the Dark side, not to beckon them to her, but to observe them. She’s hardly unfamiliar, of course, with its presence. But there is no balance without it, as it’s the shadow cast by the light.   
  
Her presence in the Force gently brushes past these tendrils that always seem to seek her. Now, they idle beside her, unsure or perhaps unknowing of her intentions. Nothing strikes out at her, no stray thing tries to grab her and pull her in. It seems as if everything is keeping a respectful distance, as if she’s diving into the ocean on Ahch-To and the creatures of the sea simply observe her. The depths of the void are cool and calming, like a stripe of shade in the desert, like the cave she hid in when Kylo Ren first came.   
  
No light blazes at this level. It’s simply darkness, but the sort of darkness like the night of Dagobah. It’s the feeling of being content, of slipping into restful sleep. This darkness is not violent, it isn’t cruel, there is no danger to be seen or felt.   
  
But there is potential.  
  
She hears it but there is no voice saying it. It’s simply words passing through the nothingness. They disappear as shades do, and she remains comfortably suspended in the sable emptiness. She knows, without giving in, what it means. Here, she could rule. She could twist the unseen threads that surround her and change things. The darkness is malleable, and the wrong hands can bend it and sharpen it to deadly blades. So many have done that very thing, and so many will. One stands out in Dagobah’s night now, a quiet presence in the great web.  
  
Rey is made of darkness, and she moves, camouflaged, towards him. She is on mist-quiet feet, she flows with the rest of the Force like water, and he takes it in out of instinct. This is his natural state, drawing from these scattered wells in the galaxy.   
  
Potential. The word moves across the darkness again and seeps into Kylo Ren’s being. There is no tremor, no flinching. He simply absorbs it in his own meditational state.   
  
And so, she slips in unnoticed again, moving through the cracks in his wall as if there is no barrier between them. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t _feel_ her. He feels nothing but this draft of the void, and he drinks it in willingly. She moves through him and he’s none the wiser.  
  
The source of the pain from before is still hidden from her. But there is _something_ , just a quiet flutter that is buried deep inside. Rey moves toward it without thinking, and only barely thinks the word _bait._ It doesn’t seem like something consciously placed, though, so she approaches it with little hesitation. In her mind’s eye, it’s like a softly-glowing globe, bright like moonlight, small enough that she could hold it in her hands. She feels it in the Force, and it feels like the snowfall on Starkiller, like wind against her skin, like the chill of the ocean as it lapped against her feet.   
  
Rey marvels at it and wonders how something like this could exist in all the darkness. Experimentally, she touches it, and the result is _incredible._  
  
Thousands of images flood the space around the globe. Magnificent colors blend and pulse and stretch to form pictures of things Rey couldn’t imagine otherwise. Flowers in every shade of the spectrum blooming bright against the backdrop of a cerulean waterfall, long stretches of translucent fabric falling from a high vaulted ceiling, fruits so plentiful and so varied that Rey has no name for more than half of them. Then, a woman, her face kind, brown eyes bright, her hands warm on his face.  
  
General Organa, younger, happier, gazing at her son like he’s the daystar in the morning and the moonlight in the night. Rey feels warmth in her chest at the sensation, a tug of nostalgia and want.   
  
Then, a man, tall and handsome, walking into the colorful room. He’s got a crooked grin and a quirked eyebrow, and there’s laughter in his eyes that he has to fight back. There’s a long, quiet second until he finally barks out a laugh and crouches down, both arms open. Rey feels the callouses on his hands as he holds his son to his chest. She smells the leather of his jacket and the mix of scents that is unmistakably the _Falcon_ , and the only thought that goes through her head is _home._  
  
She’s seeing Ben’s happiest memory, one of few, and it’s so radiant and lovely that she immediately understands.  
  
This is the shred of Light inside of him, small and concealed and protected. It’s the clinging remainder of a life very different from Kylo Ren’s. He can’t let it go. He _won’t_ , as much as he wants to.   
  
There’s a change in the atmosphere, and Rey knows she has to leave. He can feel something inside of him, and there’s a distinct need to _purge_. Rey hesitantly removes her hands from the globe, watches the colors fade away until it’s darkness again. She sinks back into the nothingness and flows into the Force once more, easing her way out until she’s back in her own body.  
  
She feels nothing from him beyond that. There’s no solar flare of anger or contempt. There’s simply silence, and Rey realizes that he didn’t notice her at all. The darkness completely concealed her and dutifully hid her the entire time.   
  
“ _Tempting, it is._ ” Yoda’s voice jerks her back to attention, and the sight of the decrepit hut is a bit of a shock. Pale blue fades into her vision, and she turns her head to see the barest outline of his ghost near another alcove close to a collapsed window. He sits on the edge of the alcove and sighs. “ _The Dark side seduces all who come in contact with it. Power, it does not only offer. Sometimes more, sometimes less._ ”  
  
Rey didn’t feel any evil from her experience. She didn’t come out of it feeling like she should attack someone or seek power. She certainly had no inclinations to mimic Kylo Ren in any way, especially after seeing that tiny globe of light, nearly extinguished.   
  
“ _Potential,_ ” Yoda says, definitely reading her mind. “ _All have the potential. You, perhaps more than most._ ”  
  
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Rey protests, feeling like she somehow has to defend herself. She _won’t_ be swayed.  
  
“ _It does not start that way,_ ” he says, nodding sagely. “ _Temptations, it offers. Gifts. But at a higher price, they come._ ”  
  
She doesn’t understand how what she just did is considered a gift. She didn’t feel particularly strong. If anything, she felt just as connected to the Force as she did with the Light. The song of the universe was just as clear and magnificent on either side.   
  
Another voice echoes through her mind. “ _What you seek is balance,_ ” says Qui-Gon, and Rey is actually relieved to hear him. His presence is like the warmth of the fire. “ _You’ve experienced it for yourself, haven’t you?_ ”  
  
Across the space, Yoda’s ghost gives a sigh and he shakes his head. “ _Too many masters for this apprentice,_ ” he repeats, tapping his stick on the ground.   
  
Rey ignores him for the moment and casts a glance around the hut for any sign of Qui-Gon’s ghost. There’s nothing but his signature in the Force. “I have,” she answers, sitting up straighter.   
  
“ _Then you know the importance of this balance. One cannot exist without the other._ ”  
  
She nods and turns her gaze to the fire again. She watches the shadows stretch and flicker. “I heard it in the Force. It was like... some kind of music,” she says, trying to imagine it again. It’s not as prominent when she isn’t meditating, but it remains in her mind like the imprint of the sun in her eyes when she closes them. “It wouldn’t sound right if there was only one side.”  
  
There’s a long silence before she hears something like a chuckle. “ _I think we were right to watch over you, Rey,_ ” he says fondly.   
  
“ _Still too many masters,_ ” Yoda says, but the protest isn’t as strong.   
  
They fade away together, and Rey smiles to herself.   
  
Tonight, the darkness doesn’t scare her. She isn’t worried about what she’s going to find, wherever she’s going. The Dark side doesn’t threaten her, and the Light abates quietly. She falls asleep on the floor of the hut, her fire dying to embers, the chemical light slowly fading to a dim, waxy glow.   
  
She dreams of the delicate balance of the Force, and of its song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> A few important definitions for next chapter, because if I value anything, it's education:
> 
> spelunk [spi-luhngk] verb (used without object)  
> 1\. to explore caves, especially as a hobby.
> 
> comeuppance [kuhm-uhp-uh ns] noun, Informal.  
> 1\. deserved reward or just deserts, usually unpleasant.
> 
> cry [krahy] verb (used without object), cried, crying.  
> 1\. to utter inarticulate sounds, especially of lamentation, grief, or suffering, usually with tears.  
> 2\. to weep; shed tears, with or without sound.
> 
> :) :) :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I'm not even going to try to mind trick you. This bad boy is like 9,000 words long, so I think I made up for my time. (It's also unbeta'd at the moment, but that's for the morning when I actually haven't stared this for hours on end.)
> 
> Aaaand fair warning, this chapter gets kind of gory and mindfuck-y. But also heartwarming! But tragic. But fun! But _horrible_. Anyway, yeah, people bleed a lot and it's gross and nauseating and it was hella fun to write. 
> 
> ~~The kissing comes later.~~

Kylo’s dreams are a patchwork mess, and it’s any wonder why. At some point in the night, it starts raining, and it quickly escalates to an outright downpour. Covering his head with the flight jacket doesn’t do much, and it takes his utmost concentration to lull himself into something resembling restfulness. He refuses to surrender and go into the hut, because that would be admitting defeat. Cold and thoroughly drenched, he forces himself to sleep.  
  
His dreams aren’t linear, although they present themselves that way. It’s like hundreds of different scenes all trying to align into something like a progressive story, but the timeline is all wrong. Memories from recently interlock with things from his childhood, peppered with events that never even happened. He knows he wakes up a few times during the night, but even that seems like a dream. It results in him dreaming about the sound of rain, of a young boy trying to make his way through knee-deep swamp water, trying to find the source of a deep, familiar voice.  
  
The rain trickles into another dream, this time of the bright multicolored glow of Coruscant, obscured by heavy fog. He walks sluggishly down one of the roads in the Entertainment District, feeling like he’s in a daze. There’s a throbbing in his head, and he can’t tell if it’s a headache or music coming from one of the many clubs along the way. There are thousands of people around him, but he can’t make out a single face. Then, near an intersection, he sees a hooded figure, face entirely obscured by shadow. They raise a hand, hidden by a black leather glove, and beckon him. Kylo takes on step towards them, but his foot passes through the road with a sickening squelching sound. He looks down to see that part of the pavement has broken away and gray swamp water is beneath it. He takes another step, but the pavement cracks again and he falls through. Each step is harder than the last, but the figure never moves. Finally, when Kylo’s nearly face-to face with the figure, the fog rolls in so heavy it’s blinding, and Coruscant fades away entirely.  
  
Kylo wakes up, shivering so hard that he has to clench his teeth. The rain is still relentless, and when he peers out from under the jacket, all he’s met with is the familiar grey of Dagobah. It’s impossible to tell what time it is without a chronometer, and his brain is still reeling from his dreams and his lack of rest.  
  
He doesn’t know how long he lays there, but eventually Rey emerges from the hut, and the first thing he notices is that she’s _dry._ The hood of her rain jacket is pulled up, but her hair is completely dry beneath it. She cinches the jacket shut and crosses her arms tightly over her chest before she walks over to him.  
  
When he tries to sit up, and he immediately realizes how sore he is. His ribs feel like they haven’t healed at all, and now he has a backache to match. He suppresses a wince when he pulls himself into a sitting position, and his shoulders give a ready protest when he pulls his jacket back on. It doesn’t help anything, since the interior is just as soaked as the rest of him.  
  
He must look terrible, because the girl looks so _smug._ There’s a barely-concealed grin on her face, her eyes bright like she managed to sleep throughout the night. She probably did, what with her fire and her shelter and everything else he refused. He won’t say that, though. Instead, he goes the familiar route of turning his aches and pains into something productive, the way he was taught.  
  
“Did you sleep well?” she asks without a hint of sarcasm. She’s getting to be a _very_ good actor.  
  
“Better than I ever have,” he returns sharply. He’s slept in worse conditions. Off the top of his head, he can’t remember what they were, but he knows that he has.  
  
She nods before reaching into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out another ration bar and a canteen. Kylo wordlessly takes them, knowing better than to refuse them. Honestly, Bactade wouldn’t go amiss, but he’ll take what he can get.  
  
“After you finish that, we’ll leave,” she says, crossing her arms again. “I’m leaving everything but the lightsabers in the hut, though.”  
  
He raises an eyebrow while peeling away the wrapper on the rations. “You think it won’t take that long,” he says, rather than asks.  
  
She shrugs. “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling it won’t.”  
  
They leave it at that, and Kylo takes his time eating. While the Dark side source intrigues him, he’s not exactly jumping at the chance to find it just yet.  
  
While she waits for him, he notices something different about her. It’s nothing physical, but instead something that’s almost imperceptible. He feels it in the Force, this tiny incremental change, and he can’t tell if it’s an effect from the Dark source or if it’s something she’s consciously done. Her Light hasn’t exactly _faded_ , so much as it’s been joined by something else. It wouldn’t do any good to feel around for the answer, though, because then she would know he was looking.  
  
He finishes off his rations with a swig from the canteen before he hands it back to her. He doesn’t thank her, and she certainly doesn’t expect him to. Instead, she puts the canteen back in her jacket before inclining her head to her left. “It’s that way, and not too far off. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, I think.”  
  
“You think.”  
  
She sighs through her nose and shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m still not sure what it is. You’ve felt it though, haven’t you?”  
  
He’s surprised she’s asking at all. “I have,” is all he says.  
  
There’s a tense moment of silence before she reaches up under her jacket and he hears a telltale click. Then, she holds out the hilt of his lightsaber to him. Her fingers are tight on it, like she’s certain this may be the worst decision she’s made today. He looks between her hand and her face a few times before he even thinks about accepting it. “What is this for?” he asks, voice low and distrusting.  
  
“For what ever might be in there,” she says. It’s obvious that it pains her to do this as much as he thinks it does. He tried to kill her last time he had it. For her to do this is both unprecedented and rather stupid. Then again, she was capable of holding her own during their last lightsaber battle. Outside interference was the only thing stopping him the second time. When he doesn’t immediately take it, she holds it out a little farther. “I can’t handle two at once,” she says by means of explanation. “If there’s something in there that wants to kill us, I’d rather both of us be armed and ready.”  
  
“After I tried to kill you with it,” he deadpans.  
  
She gives him a level look, and fleetingly, it reminds him of the no-nonsense glare his mother would give him if he tried to do something idiotic in her presence.  
  
“Are you going to try again?” she asks, and it sounds rhetorical.  
  
No, he won’t. If he’s going to do anything, he’s going to take her back alive.  
  
Without another word, he takes the lightsaber from her, momentarily relishing in the familiar weight in his hand. “No,” he finally answers, clipping it to a belt loop.  
  
“Good. Let’s go.”  
  
\---  
  
It’s still early enough in the day where the temperature is in a semi-comfortable stasis. Rey doesn’t have to shed her jacket as they walk, even as the rain pours down on them. She doesn’t have any sympathy for Kylo, even though it isn’t easy to miss the disgruntled tangle of emotions flowing off of him like the deluge above them. She knows without prying that he barely slept and that his injuries haven’t healed enough to prevent any pain. If anything, she just stays content with the fact that he was the one that was too prideful to give in and sleep somewhere dry.  
  
She doesn’t slow her pace at all for his sake. In fact, she pushes harder, treating the complex root system of Dagobah’s native trees as a sort of obstacle course. They seem to grow larger and more labyrinthine the closer they get to the Dark place, and Rey has no doubt that it’s an effect of the source itself. The landscape just gets stranger and more alien, less like any swamp she knows and more like something hostile.  
  
Kylo manages to keep up, although she can feel him inwardly protesting. After she hurries across a natural root bridge in a sprint, he follows, and she feels something push through the small bond they have. It doesn’t even need words, instead planting itself in her head like she was the one who thought it. _Seriously, slow down!_  
  
Rey knows that he didn’t mean to project it, since he’s not one to profess any weakness of his own. But she’s not going to let it slide. _You don’t have to keep up with me. It’s okay to take it easy,_ she projects back with a grin.  
  
She hears him grunt behind her. “I’m fine,” he says, or maybe snarls. It’s hard to tell with both of them panting.  
  
She doesn’t slow down. It’s good training, if nothing else. Her footwork has to be precise and she has to be agile, or else she’ll land face first in the swamp water. Even with focusing on that, she has to also focus on finding this place. The Force helps her move, guides her like an inner compass, steering her right and left, telling her where to climb up and where to slide down. Rey knows what adrenaline highs feel like, when it feels as if nothing can stop her. This isn’t so different.  
  
It flows so easily through her that it’s physically jarring when it stops. It’s as if she’s hit a wall, an invisible barrier between one side and the other.  She freezes suddenly, and Kylo almost plows into her.  
  
“What the he--” he starts, but then he feels it, too.  
  
It feels as if they’re somewhere else, an alien place that isn’t Dagobah, nor is it anywhere else they’ve been. This isn’t the darkness from the night before. There’s nothing comforting here.  
  
Rey has to get her bearings, and it’s difficult. She remembers the computers and compasses on some of the ships on Jakku, how they would start to act strange and unstable when a sandstorm would come through. Unkar Plutt told her it was something magnetic, and the Teedos said it was the wrath of a god. What ever it was, Rey feels it now. She can’t tell where to step next, or how she could get back to the hut or the campsite. It’s a dizzying sensation, not unlike vertigo, and it makes her feel nauseous.  
  
Kylo must feel it as well. His hand is on his lightsaber and he looks around like he’s trying to find the source. Then, he turns his head and nods. “This way,” he says.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
He doesn’t look at her. He just keeps staring ahead, like he sees something through the low-hanging fog that settles over the place. “I just do,” he replies. It doesn’t even sound cryptic. It just sounds factual. Rey supposes it makes sense. He’s more versed in the Dark side than her, so it’s very possible that the atmosphere of this place hardly bothers him at all. He might even feel at home in it.  
  
She follows him and tries to shrug off the feeling that she’s being watched. Like him, her hand is near her lightsaber, although she doesn’t feel anything with life nearby. It’s like all the creatures of Dagobah explicitly ignore the area, and she can’t blame them. It feels more lifeless and barren than the desert, and even more so, it feels like graveyard. It reminds her of the stories passed through scavenger groups about some of the ships that would be unearthed after a storm or particularly high winds. The ships would be opened, only to reveal that they were still full of corpses of those who couldn’t escape their fates. Rey had only ever seen a few whole bodies, and she had seen plenty of bones. The sensation isn’t new to her, and it feels uncannily like this.  
  
Then, she sees it. It’s some kind of tree, but not like the bone-white gnarltree that she’s gotten familiar with. It’s enormous and dark, branches spreading out with green-black vines hanging every which way. The roots are covered in unsightly growths like a disease, and they arch upward to form an opening like a cave. The fog itself seems to come from this opening, and the cave seems like it breathes it in and out.  
  
The darkness is so strong here that it’s heavy. Rey doesn’t want to reach into it at all.  
  
“There it is,” Kylo says, staring at the cave with an unreadable expression. “And you really want to go in there?”  
  
“No,” she says honestly, her hand already on the hilt of her saber. “I don’t _want_ to. I _have_ to.”  
  
He doesn’t say anything for a moment before he sighs and glances at her. His eyes look especially dark, the brown of them completely given way to black. “I suppose I’m going in with you.”  
  
She wants to say yes, that it’s the reason she gave him his lightsaber. Yet she shakes her head despite her misgivings. “You don’t have to,” she says, even though she wants to say that he does. Something else tells her that this is something she has to do by herself, although she wants nothing more than to turn back and go somewhere safer.  
  
Kylo frowns and looks down at his lightsaber. “So, what? Do I stand guard while you do what you have to do?”  
  
“If you want.”  
  
A corner of his mouth quirks. “If I _want,_ ” he repeats, and then he looks back to the cave. “That’s a first.”  
  
Rey draws in a breath and focuses on the tremor that’s starting in the pit of her abdomen. “Yeah,” she says. “If you want to go in, fine. If not, that’s fine, too.”  
  
He sighs. “Not like I have anything better to do. Lead the way.”  
  
She doesn’t want to, but she walks ahead regardless.  
  
Entering into the cave reminds her of the one she hid in when she ran from Kylo. It’s cold in a way that only the underground can be, and there’s a distinct earthy smell, a mixture of natural rot and hard-packed dirt. The entire thing is dark and overgrown, the walls of the cave covered in fungi and moss. The ground beneath her feet is solid but slippery, so Rey watches her footing with every step.  
  
She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, and the deeper they go into the cave, the more concerned she gets that she isn’t going to find it. The only thing keeping her grounded is Kylo’s presence behind her. She hears an echo of every footstep, and it’s reassuring somehow, in a way Kylo never has been. It’s strange how this place and its atmosphere changes her very perception of him.  
  
Then, everything goes silent.  
  
It doesn’t seem odd at first, until she realizes that there’s no extra footstep for every one she takes. She turns to ask what’s wrong, and freezes when she sees that she’s alone. There’s not even a receding sense of his presence. There’s _nothing_ , like he’s completely disappeared. She casts out in the Force to find him, but something blocks it. It’s not him, not the wall that he established between them. Something else is stopping her, and it’s out of both of their control.  
  
She hears something in the distance, just around the bend in the cave. It’s like a scrape against the stone, and then a soft pattering. Trepidation fills her, and it takes every ounce of courage she has to take another step forward. Her grip is white-knuckled on her lightsaber, her eyes wide, her steps hesitant and careful.  
  
There’s very little light in the cave to begin with. Most of it comes through holes in the root system above, and even then, it’s a dim, watery gray. The further she goes, though, the darker it seems to get. Every time she stops, though, another sound echoes through the cave. More scraping, and then something clanging, like a metallic object falling to the ground. She keeps walking, and eventually, she has to ignite her saber just for a light source.  
  
It lights an eerie blue path before her, and Rey takes it carefully. There’s nothing but puddles of muddy water and the occasional black root, and then...  
  
She sees a trail of footprints. They’re clumsy, like someone was staggering through. Her first thought is Kylo, and as she follows the trail, the bottom of her stomach drops out. Spatters of blood mix with the mud and water, and their intermittent pattern slowly becomes more constant. It becomes harder to breathe the longer she goes, and her imagination is supplying what her vision cannot. All she can see is Kylo, injured, bleeding out somewhere in the depths of the cave. She doesn’t know why that makes her so anxious, since it wasn’t even a few days ago that she wished he was dead.  
  
Then, she sees a boot. It’s with a mix of outright fear and relief that she realizes it isn’t his. She shines her lightsaber over it and just beyond, sees a body on the ground. Rey rushes over, eyes wide, and goes to her knees beside the person. They’re lying facedown, dressed in dark brown fatigues and a black jacket of some kind of military regulation. Carefully, with the lightsaber held out a distance, she rolls them onto their back. It’s a young man, by the look of it, gray eyes wide, black hair tousled and matted on one side by a mixture of mud and his own blood. He’s clearly dead, and the cause is the gaping wound in his side. It’s not a clean cut by any means. If anything, it looks like something tore into him.  
  
Rey feels sick to her stomach, and it takes a great deal of self-control not to vomit right there.  
  
Another scrape resounds through the cave. Rey is all to eager to leave the corpse, but not without shutting his eyes first and trying to ignore how cold his skin is.  
  
There’s more footprints in the mud. More blood leaving trails. Another corpse, this time of an older woman with white-blonde hair streaked black with dirt. Her right arm is out of its socket and there are black-blue bruises on her neck. Then another corpse, and another. The entire cave system is lined with bodies, all bearing military coats and fatigues, all bruised and bloody.  
  
Rey doesn’t realize she’s running until her lungs burn. Tears are hot in her eyes and on her cheeks. She can’t even see the bodies anymore. She only knows enough to step around them, to not step on arms and legs and faces, no matter how many there are. She doesn’t know the number. It might be dozens, it might be _hundreds_. There are just _so_ many.  
  
All she wants is to get out of the cave, to see Dagobah or Jakku or _anywhere_ that isn’t this horrible place. She can’t hear anything now except her own heaving sobs.  
  
And then she sees a blue glow in the distance.  
  
Her legs carry her, and she’s goes full-tilt into a desperate sprint. Or, until the cave opens up into something else. The packed dirt walls give way to shiny black stone, and the root ceiling gets higher and higher until it seems as tall as the sky. There are fewer corpses, but the ones she sees now look familiar somehow, although she doesn’t know their faces or names.  
  
The blue glow comes from another lightsaber, held by someone who stands in front of her, cloaked in all black, their back turned to her. Before them is a black dais bathed in pale light. There’s a body on it, blood pouring from a wound cleaved into their head. There’s so much blood that it’s impossible to tell who they were. It slowly strikes Rey as strange that it’s a bloody wound, and not the cauterized one of a lightsaber.  
  
“What...” is all she can manage, her voice hoarse and her breathing unsteady.  
  
The figure doesn’t turn. They don’t even seem to hear her.  
  
Then, slowly, they extend their other arm, the one without the saber, and they point to one of the bodies on the floor. Rey gets the sensation that they want her to look, even though her mind rallies against it violently. She takes slow steps, mindful of the corpses she steps around, her own lightsaber still lit at her side.  
  
When she sees who it is, Rey knows she’s going to be sick.  
  
Poe Dameron lies face up, his brown eyes wide, his mouth agape and bloody, a deep, horrible cut across his neck that nearly cleaves his head from his body. When Rey turns away, she finds Finn at her feet. He’s on his side, an enormous, jagged wound going up his right arm, so deep that she can see pale slivers of bone amongst the mess of blood. Another wound bites deep into his torso, spilling viscera across the stone.  
  
Rey’s not even aware she’s screaming.  
  
Every time she turns, there’s more. General Organa, a hole deep in her chest to match Han Solo’s. Master Luke, his mechanical arm cut away from his body and his torso practically bisected. Body after body, all wearing the faces of people she knows. Her screams are ripped from her, combined with sobs, and she can’t get away.  
  
“Look,” says a voice, steely and horrible. Trembling, sobbing, Rey looks up at the figure. They seem completely at home in the massacre. They point at the bloody mess on the dais, the thing that was once a person. “ _Look._ ”  
  
Rey steps over her friends, her family. Her boots slip in their blood and entrails. She doesn’t know how she makes it to the dais at all, but she does, and she looks down.  
  
It’s hard to tell who it is. There’s almost no way. The face is just a mess of gashes and holes. She sees some of the hair, and it’s as black as the stone around her. Then, she looks down to the corpse’s right hand and sees the unmistakable smoldering remainders of a three-bladed lightsaber. _Kylo’s_ lightsaber.  
  
Rey turns around so quickly that she almost falls to the floor. The figure stands in front of her now, their head down.  
  
“You see?” they say in a voice like ice and glass. “He needed to die. They all did. All of them. They were the price.”  
  
She doesn’t know how she can find her voice. “Who are you?” she asks, and her voice is so broken and strained that it doesn’t sound like her at all. Then, the figure’s hood comes down, and Rey feels her entire body go numb.  
  
She’s looking at _herself_.  
  
The Rey across from her is different, though, but it’s definitely her. She’s paler, thinner, but stronger somehow. Her eyes are a terrible toxic yellow, and her smile is like a gash across her face. “Don’t you know?” this Rey asks. There’s no emotional inflection. There’s nothing there that would suggest that she was ever human. This is a shade, this is a _real_ monster.  
  
“Why...” Rey breathes. She can’t even ask. She doesn’t want to know what happened, but she _has_ to.  
  
The other Rey grins, and it’s not even mad. It’s just a movement of her face, her teeth showing. “There is no emotion,” she says. “There is peace.” The quiet of the room is deafening.  
  
The monster takes a step forward. “There is no ignorance. There is knowledge.” Another step. “There is no passion. There is serenity.” Her boot slides a little in a pool of Kylo’s blood. “There is no chaos. There is harmony.”  
  
Rey wants to scream. She wants to fight. She wants to sink her lightsaber into this _thing’s_ face and destroy it. But she can’t move. Every limb is frozen, every joint is stiffened. She can hear her blood roaring in her veins and her heart thrumming in her chest, beating against her ribcage like a trapped bird. Then, in her mind, she sees something moving in the Force. A light, so bright and massive that it’s blinding, painful in its radiation. It’s limitless, but stark and lifeless. There’s no color to it, no shape. It just _is_ , and it’s the worst thing she’s ever seen.  
  
“There is no death,” the thing says, and one hand comes up to rest as heavy as a leaden weight on Rey’s shoulder. The monstrous light in the Force seeps into Rey and it feels like she’s drowning in it. Fingers clench painfully hard into her skin. Her bones protest, creak, and threaten to break.  
  
“Oh, Rey,” the monster whispers, and Rey sees the blue glow of the lightsaber drain away. It turns white, like bone, like a too-bright star. “You must control the Dark. You must not let it touch you. Dark things will only destroy you, so you must destroy them first. Then, you will be a real Jedi.”  
  
The other Rey shoves her and Rey falls backwards, landing heavily on Kylo’s body. Her lightsaber clatters away from her, and her hand clamors for purchase, but finds only his blood, slippery and cold on the floor. Burning white fills her vision, the color of the lightsaber drawing up to cleave her in half.  
  
“You are Dark,” the other Rey says, as peaceful as the wind on an island. “I must destroy you.”  
  
Rey doesn’t know who moves first. She can’t rightfully tell what happens, as there’s only a terrible shrieking sound, high and unnatural. When her vision comes back, it’s filled with red. Bright, unstable red, hot and angry and _wonderful._ Her focus comes back, and she sees the red blade, two flaring quillons on either side of it, the tip of it buried deep inside the monster’s chest. Her hand holds the melted remains of Kylo’s lightsaber’s hilt, and right before her eyes, it reforms itself.  
  
It glows metallurgically bright, and black gives way to silver. The rough edges smooth themselves, the wires move around and slip back into the hilt. When all is said and done, it’s a new lightsaber, its grip comfortable in her hand, like her quarterstaff on Jakku. Red fades to pink, darkens to violet, soothes to blue, and brightens to cyan. Its light bathes both of them in greenish-blue, like water in the sunlight.  
  
“How--?” the other Rey asks. She chokes on her words and tilts her head, like she’s trying to take Rey in and figure her out. “That’s... This is impossible. How can you...”  
  
But Rey doesn’t give her time to finish. She twists her lightsaber in her grip and slices violently to her right, cutting a cauterized gash into the monster’s side. The other Rey crumples to the ground with a choking sound, and then, there’s silence.  
  
Rey is left in the massive room with all of the corpses, and she’s still rested up against Kylo’s. His blood is still on her hand and it soaks into her clothes. She wants to scream again, but now, she can’t even cry. There’s nothing left in her except exhaustion. She doesn’t move, not even to get away from his remains. Instead, she leans her head back and closes her eyes, her lightsaber falling silent as she drops the hilt to the ground.  
  
“... _Rey?_ ”  
  
Her eyes shoot open at the voice. Before her, standing over the corpse of her other self, is the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yet he looks different. He’s no longer an old man, but instead much younger, healthier. His hair is dark brown, matching his beard. His eyes are bright, but concerned. It’s definitely him, as she feels his presence in the Force as clear as anything. He walks towards her, one hand extended. “ _Let’s get you out of here,_ ” he says, and his voice is nothing but kind. It’s so warm and gentle that it makes her want to cry. She takes his hand, and it’s completely tangible. She feels the heat of his skin, the callouses on his fingers and his palm, and the sure strength of his grip.  
  
He pulls her up, and subsequently, pulls her out of the black room. She’s back in the cave in an instant, the pale light of Dagobah pouring in. The shock of it jarrs her so badly that she stumbles, and Obi-Wan manages to catch her. The weight of his arm is like the most comforting thing she’s ever felt, and she clings to it. When she looks up at his face, she sees nothing but pity and a deep sadness.  
  
“ _What you just saw, Rey, none of that was real. No one is dead. You’re alright,_ ” he says slowly, like he’s speaking to a frightened child.  
  
She finds her voice, but just barely. “What was that?”  
  
“ _Your fears. The power of this cave has only grown over the ages, and what it showed you was nothing but your nightmares,_ ” he explains, keeping his arm on her. “ _But you conquered them. That’s what this was for._ ”  
  
She killed the other version of herself. Tears come to her eyes at the thought. “That thing... It was aligned with the Light. It said it was a Jedi. How can that be true?”  
  
Obi-Wan frowns, and then sighs. “ _I don’t know, Rey. Then again, that might not be for me to know. Just know that you’re safe now._ ”  
  
Another vision comes to her. Kylo’s corpse, face destroyed beyond recognition, his blood on her hands. When she looks down, her hands are clean. There’s nothing there except for streaks of dirt. Even the lightsaber in her other hand is the same. It’s not the cyan one from before. “Where’s Kylo?” she asks, fear already sinking like a cold weight inside of her.  
  
“ _Alive, I’m certain,_ ” Obi-Wan replies. There’s something unreadable in his face. “ _But he’s facing his own fears. No one leaves this place unscathed._ ”  
  
“His fears?”  
  
“ _Yes. We all have them. Even Darth Vader did._ ”  
  
Darth Vader. He doesn’t say Anakin. Rey clings tighter to his arm and lets him guide her through the network of passages of the cave.  
  
“Will he be able to come back out?” she asks.  
  
Obi-Wan nods, and there might be a smirk forming on his face, but it’s difficult to tell. “ _Yes. He’s not alone._ ”  
  
She nods and holds on tight to the ghost while she still can.  
  
\---  
  
Kylo doesn’t know where he is, or where the girl is. All he sees is an unending path no matter which way he turns. He’s tried to turn around three times now, and each time, he feels like he goes back to where he started. He’s certain that he’s been walking in a circle, and when he tries to call on the Force to guide him out, it doesn’t help.  
  
It feels like he’s been walking for hours, and his body begins to protest it. His arm is sore, his wrist lancing with pain if he gives it even the smallest movement, his ribs creak with every step and bite into him if he moves wrong. He doesn’t know why they all suddenly flare up, or why his head starts to throb like he hit it again. All he knows is that he can’t use them for focus for some reason. His training is failing him, and not a single technique is working. The pain can’t be funneled, can’t be diluted, can’t be concentrated into something workable. It’s just a constant reminder, burning and pinching and biting until he feels like he’s going half-mad from it.  
  
When he thinks he passes the same latticework of roots crawling up the cave wall for the fifth time, he finally grabs his lightsaber and ignites it without a second thought. With a frustrated yell, he hacks at the thing until it’s a mess of water and plant bits, smoldering with gashes from the saber. It doesn’t make him feel any better, or vindicated in the least. If anything, it makes his pain flare up hotter.  
  
“ _That doesn’t seem productive,_ ” comes the ghost’s voice. It comes at the wrong time, and Kylo whirls around, fully intent on bisecting the specter. When he turns, there’s nothing, and the saber just makes contact with the other side of the wall, leaving an angry black gash in the dirt.  
  
“ _Temper, temper,_ ” he sing-songs.  
  
Kylo pants in anger, turning his head back and forth, trying to find the source of the thing. “Shut the hell up!” he yells, and his lightsaber crackles as if in agreement. “Show yourself!”  
  
“ _You know, I’ve got a bet going with myself,_ ” the ghost goes on, and his voice seems to come from the walls. “ _What breaks first? You, or your lightsaber?_ ”  
  
“You, if I have any say in it,” Kylo seethes, his grip tightening on the hilt. The second he sees blue, he’s going to hack it into shreds.  
  
“ _Good thing you don’t,_ ” the ghost replies. “ _But then, you don’t really get a say in much, do you?_ ”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Kylo yells, still searching. There’s nothing but darkness and glowing red.  
  
The ghost laughs, and it rings through the cave like a bell. The sound makes Kylo’s head pulse more. “ _Oh, you know, everything. All of your choices in your life. You didn’t get a word in edgewise on what you wanted, right?_ ”  
  
“Of course I did,” Kylo snarls. “You don’t know anything about me!”  
  
“ _On the contrary,_ ” comes the reply. “ _Would someone who knows nothing about you know that your mother was the one who made you leave? You didn’t want to, of course. Why would you? And for good reason. When you were scared, you wanted to go to her. There, you were scared, and you had no one to go to. I know you dreamed about her, and I know you wanted nothing more than to steal a ship and fly back home. What stopped you?_ ”  
  
The statement makes Kylo’s blood run cold. His eyes widen and his jaw goes slack. How did it _know_? That wasn’t common knowledge, and he never shared that with anyone except...  
  
“Who are you?” he asks again, and he can’t suppress the tremor in his voice.  
  
“ _No, you didn’t have a say,_ ” the ghost goes on, ignoring his question. “ _You had Luke Skywalker instructing you, telling you what to do, what to think, what to say. And then, you had your grandfather, whispering to you in the night when you knew no one else could hear. He said so many things to you. He told you the plans he had, how he regretted falling back into the Light when there was so much else he could have done. You remember that._ ”  
  
There’s no words Kylo can say. His voice dies in his throat.  
  
The ghost seems to take this as a cue to go on. “ _Even after, when your grandfather told you to seek Snoke out. Your mother knew, didn’t she? She warned you not to, but you did it anyway, because your grandfather was the only one who understood. He was the most powerful being in the galaxy at one point, and he was trusting you with his legacy. His own daughter couldn’t understand that, so how could anyone else? After all, you were so special. He even told you so._ ”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo sees the ghostly blue form a shape. He turns and sees the ghost, scar and all. He’s smiling, but there’s no humor to it.  
  
“ _And then he told you to finish what he started. He told you about Order 66, and you knew he was instrumental in making it happen. He told you about what he did to those Jedi, and the children. The very lightsaber that the girl stole from you took those lives. It seemed only right that you have it, since you were just continuing his legacy,_ ” the ghost says, walking up to Kylo with slow, easy steps.  
  
There’s a flicker in the ghost’s image, and Kylo thinks he’s imagining it, maybe hallucinating it. It seems like half of the ghost’s face twists and morphs into something else. But the image is gone before Kylo can make sense of it. Then the ghost saunters up to him until their eyes are level with each other. The ghost smirks, and his face twitches again.  
  
“ _I don’t blame you,_ ” he says. “ _You were young back then. You had no way of knowing._ ”  
  
“Knowing what?” Kylo asks, quieter than he intended.  
  
“ _The voice you heard at night. How could you ever know who it really was?_ ”  
  
Before Kylo can ask, the other half of the ghost’s face _does_ change. First, it changes to a burnt, charred thing with one red-yellow eye glowing bright in the darkness. His lips are gone, his teeth exposed. It changes again to something sickly white and wrinkled, but whole. And then, one more time, to sleek blackness, inhuman, like armor. His mouth is hidden by a triangular respirator, his eye covered by a shiny black lens.  
  
Kylo knows what it is. He’s stared into the very same thing countless times.  
  
When the ghost speaks again, it speaks in two voices at once. One is the ghost’s, young and sure. The other is deep and dark, modulated by a machine, and one that Kylo’s heard thousands of times.  
  
It’s the voice of Darth Vader.  
  
“ _And now you know,_ ” he says. Kylo hears him draw a breath through the respirator and let it out with a click and a rush.  
  
The ghost’s hand reaches out to him so quickly that he can’t process it. It grips the air, and Kylo can feel the grip around his throat. When the ghost raises his hand, Kylo’s feet lift off the ground, and the tips of his boots scrape the dirt. Black edges his vision, and the only thought that can even make a full gauntlet in his head is that Darth Vader, his own grandfather, is going to kill him.  
  
His vision darkens, and then comes back in a shock of white. Kylo hits the ground, but lands on tile instead of dirt. His right arm is on fire with pain, and he grits his teeth against it. When he looks up, he finds himself in a room he’s never been in before. It’s enormous and reminds him of a throne room with a large window facing out into the darkness of space. To the right, there are bright flashes of a battle in the distance.  
  
It’s familiar, and slowly, as the pain recedes from white-hot to something manageable, he realizes that this is the scene he saw before, when the ghost talked to him. There’s a cloaked man sitting in a chair, his back to the window. Beside him is a man Kylo barely recognizes, dressed in black. He looks out the window to the battle, and when he says something, the cloaked man laughs in a dry, hacking way. Closer to Kylo is Darth Vader, watching the scene unfold in complete silence. He hears the respirator heave, click, and rasp.  
  
Things seem to speed up, and yet it seems like no time passes at all. The man dressed in black has his lightsaber out, bright green like a TIE blast. Darth Vader fights him with a red saber, and when they turn in their fight, Kylo sees the other man and realizes that it’s his uncle, considerably younger. Luke Skywalker fights with absolute ferocity, but also trained restraint. Vader does the same, but is more subtle about it. The fight is agile, a meeting of two incredibly skilled men. The attack, twist, parry, thrust, and move around the room like it’s a carefully choreographed dance. And then, Luke hides.  
  
Speed up again. The cloaked man, the Emperor, stands nearby, hands raised and bright blue lightning erupting from his fingers. On the ground, Luke screams in agony. He twitches and writhes and pleads for his father to help him. Vader observes it almost passively, and then, suddenly, he’s in action. He picks up the Emperor like the man weighs nothing. Lightning covers both of them, repeatedly electrocuting Vader, but hardly stopping him. He throws the Emperor down a deep chasm, and the resounding explosion is enough to tell exactly what happened.  
  
The scene changes to something that looks like a hangar. Vader is propped up and asks Luke to take his helmet off, to see his son with his own eyes. Luke does so, revealing the pale face Kylo saw before, wrinkled and scarred, older than his actual years. His eyes flit across Luke’s face, taking the image of his son in while he can. He seems at peace, satisfied with what he’s seen. The Dark eases inside of him, but does not drain out. It meets with the Light, and he passes quietly, his son looking on him without fear or anger, but respect and grief.  
  
Then, there is a fire. A funeral pyre. The helmet melts in the heat.  
  
And then it’s in Kylo’s room, raised up like it’s an object worth worship.  
  
With a jerk, Kylo is back on the dirt floor of the cave, looking up at the half-Vader ghost before him. With his one human eye, he regards Kylo with something like pity. “ _Now you’ve seen it. That’s the truth,_ ” he says in his two voices. The respirator clicks and gasps again.  
  
“That doesn’t make sense,” Kylo breathes. His lungs burn like he’s breathed in smoke and his heart rams hard enough to hurt. He doesn’t want to believe this. He doesn’t want to understand that the man who broke his arm and his ribs, who sank his fighter, who ruined _everything_ is his grandfather, the very man he praised and emulated. He doesn’t want to absorb the fact that all of those years of meditating on the words whispered to him between waking and sleeping were all lies. They couldn’t have been. It went on for too long, and he based so much of his life around what the spirit said to him and what it showed him. This ghost is the impostor, then. It wears his grandfather’s mask and reads his mind, pulling out things from his past and twisting them around. The ghost is the liar, and it needs to be destroyed.  
  
He grips his lightsaber hard and the unstable red matrix fills the void between them. He’s on his feet and slashing with the complete and total intent of annihilating this creature until there’s nothing left. He’s yelling, _screaming_ , and there’s no intelligible words. Yet the blade just passes through the ghost and cuts into the cave wall instead.  
  
He’s not even aware there are tears on his face until they start to itch.  
  
The ghost just watches him, pitying him in a way that Kylo hates. He _hates_ pity. There’s no room for it in his life, and he swore he would never do anything that would earn it. He doesn’t want a single soul looking down on him and feeling sorry for his misfortunes. He won’t be that weak _ever again._  
  
Then, the ghost raises his hand and Kylo feels himself freeze. His arms are still caught in an attack pose and the lightsaber is an insistent buzz in his ear.  
  
“ _Enough of that. You’re not convinced,_ ” he says solemnly. “ _You’re angry. That’s what you were taught to be. Anger and pain fuels you. That’s what your grandfather said, isn’t it?_ ”  
  
Kylo can’t answer. His throat feels swollen shut, his jaw locked in place. The ghost waves his other hand and Kylo’s lightsaber sputters to silence.  
  
“ _Anger will kill you,_ ” the ghost goes on. He walks closer to Kylo, respirator breathing with every other step. “ _It will consume you. It’s already started doing that, but you have a chance that I didn’t have until the very end. And in my voice, he told you that I regretted it. I never did. Not for a damn day, Ben._ ”  
  
Tears keep rolling down his cheeks, and his muscles strain and shake. Kylo wants to scream or do _anything_ , but he’s as still as stone. The ghost won’t let him go, even when he tries to block him out. He doesn’t want to hear this.  
  
“ _No, you need to hear it,_ ” he says. “ _In fact, why don’t you hear what was going on all along?_ ”  
  
Instantly, Kylo’s head is full of voices. It’s the same deep, sonorous voice of Vader, all telling Kylo things he heard before. They are things he heard as a child, as a teenager, as an adult, all the way up until recently, before he got entangled with people like Rey and the traitor Stormtrooper. He knows every word. He hung on those words for years, worshipped them like little unique relics that he was given. Then, with a wave of the ghost’s hand, the voice changes. The words are the same, but in Snoke’s voice.  
  
_Embrace it, Kylo Ren. The Dark side meant nothing but power for me, and it will mean power for us. I’m entrusting you to finish what I began. You have the chance to avoid my weakness. Compassion will only destroy you. You were already so weak, and I allowed you to become strong. Become stronger still, and I can promise you your place in the galaxy._  
  
In Vader’s voice, it was nothing but strength and assurance and pride. In Snoke’s voice, it’s an empty promise, like a joke.  
  
_Your family makes you weak. They have always tried to tame your powers, but only because they know how strong you really are, and it frightens them. Even your mother fears you, and so she tries to control you, because control is all she knows. And your father doesn’t understand. He never will. He’s the weakest link in this chain._  
  
Kylo hears it now for what it really was. A contract, like Kylo was no more than a bounty hunter. Kill people like Han Solo, Leia, and Luke. Kill the ones that may have gotten in Snoke’s way in the past. Kill Vader’s only two children, including the one who helped redeem him.  
  
It’s not at the ghost’s suggestion anymore. Kylo feels it in himself, like a truth he tried so hard not to allow himself to believe. He had been used, strung along like he was nothing more than another militant running purely on propaganda. Snoke had led him to believe he was in control the entire time, when absolutely nothing was under his control in the first place. Things had been whispered to him from the time he was a child, his mind malleable, and it used the voice of his own grandfather to change him.  
  
The ghost seems to sense this and lets him go, allows him to fall to the ground so hard that his knees hurt. Kylo gasps for breath, shakes so hard that he has to grip the edge of his flight jacket just to hold himself together.  
  
“ _Ben,_ ” the ghost says, and Kylo looks up immediately. The ghost is back to the way he was before, a form that Kylo now knows is Anakin Skywalker. “ _There’s one last thing you need to see._ ” He says remorsefully, like it’s something he doesn’t want to do. Then he walks to Kylo’s side and puts a hand on his shoulder. It could be interpreted as reassuring, by Kylo’s mind is such a disaster right now, he doesn’t know what to make of it.  
  
In front of him, in the darkness, another ghost appears. It isn’t blue like Anakin. Instead, it flickers red and white, and it’s hazy like steam wafting in the air. Slowly, it walks up to Kylo, and it lifts his head once he can see it clearly.  
  
It’s his face, but similar to the Anakin-Vader ghost. Half his face is his own, complete with the scar lancing up from his chin to his nose. The other half is a mottled, rusted, bloody version of his mask. It looks like it’s been carelessly jammed into half of his head, as his skin seems to grow around the metal. His one eye glows yellow, and the visible half of his mouth is curled into a sneer.  
  
This ghost reaches out to him and touches the right side of his face, where his father touched him before he fell from the bridge. Images race through his head at the sensation, of bodies strewn across a room much like the Supreme Leader’s reception chamber, their corpses in various states of maiming. Upon a dais, below where he stands, is the eviscerated corpse of Rey, her head tilted back and a wound crossing her neck from ear to ear, still smoking from cauterization. Her eyes are wide, blood pouring from her nose and her mouth.  
  
_Good_ , says a voice, half Vader and half Snoke. _Very good._  
  
Then his mother’s body, impaled on his lightsaber. His uncle’s after that. More and more and more until there’s no one left. In his vision, entire star systems explode into massive fireballs. The galaxy trembles in his wake, and there is peace, because there is no one left to disturb it. He is no longer weak. There is no light left in him anymore.  
  
Kylo comes out of that vision with a sob. His forehead is pressed into the cool dirt of the cave floor, and his back heaves with each breath. This wasn’t what he intended for his future. This was never what was promised to him.  
  
There’s the slightest pressure on his back, and Anakin speaks to him, far gentler than before. “ _Come on,_ ” he says. “ _You should probably get out of here. I think you’ve seen enough._ ”  
  
It’s through no action of Kylo’s that gets him on his feet. For the first time, Anakin helps him, and all the pain in his body recedes. He walks, and each step feels a little lighter than the last.  
  
\---  
  
Daylight, even in a place like Dagobah, is suddenly the most beautiful thing Rey has ever seen. In that moment, it trumps the endless green and perfect sunlight of Takodana, and the sprawling blue ocean of Ahch-To. It isn’t the cave, and it’s exactly as she remembers it. Nothing has changed. No one is dead yet. She could practically kiss the ground from the relief of it.  
  
Once she looks around, she realizes that Kylo is nowhere to be seen, and the worry starts to gnaw at her again. Unbidden, she pictures his corpse again, and she feels nauseous on impact. She leans up against a boulder jutting out of the ground and tries to anchor herself in the _now_. There’s no way he could have died in there, especially if she hadn’t, given what she had seen.  
  
For a moment, she thinks she should go back in and look for him. It takes some debate, and as soon as she takes a step forward to go back in, he comes out. More appropriately, he stumbles out. He looks terrible, and if she has to guess, he probably saw something much like what she saw. At the thought that his vision might have been as bad as hers, she’s nearly overwhelmed in empathy.  
  
He sees her, and his eyes widen. There’s dark circles under them, like he’s gone weeks without sleeping. He looks at her like he can’t believe she’s real, and something crosses his expression that looks almost like relief.  
  
They don’t speak. They don’t _have_ to, at least at that moment.  
  
When he tries to walk towards her, he stumbles again, and she’s at his side in a second. Her right arm goes up under his left, supporting him like a crutch. And she knows something’s changed when he doesn’t reject it at all. He doesn’t say a single word against her.  
  
“Come on,” she says quietly, and for that moment, she relishes in the heat coming off of him. He’s alive and he’s here and she’s not alone after what she saw.  
  
“Yeah,” he replies. It’s practically a whisper. Through their bond, she feels something like warmth, like a _thank you._  
  
_You’re welcome_ , she projects back, and she thinks she sees him try to smile.  
  
They walk back through the labyrinth of roots and trees like that, bodies in contact the entire time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> [Anakin/Vader ghost concept art! I thought it was very cool.](http://screencrush.com/442/files/2015/12/anakin-force-awakens-pic-2.jpg?w=630&cdnnode=1)
> 
> 'I HATE CAVES' and 'I HATE SPELUNKING' shirts available at the end of your scenic Dark Side Cave tour. Other fun items available in the gift shop include keychains and decorative picture frames! Always remember the fun time you spent facing your crippling fears and misgivings with your loved ones!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! Another late chapter! Hahahaha! I haven't been fretting about this at all!
> 
> No but seriously, thank you guys for being so patient while this chapter was in development. I hit a major obstacle made of one hundred percent pure writer's block, and I ended up going through four drafts until I got something that was semi-decent. I'm still not entirely sure about this chapter, but I'm not feeling bad about it! That's a plus! (For reference, I feel way better about the next one. Can you say re-la-tion-ship de-vel-op-ment? You can? Yay!)
> 
> Also, thank you thank you _thank you_ for the legitimately overwhelming response to the last chapter. I was floored by it, and maybe a wee bit teary-eyed. Honestly, I've never gotten that kind of reaction for anything I've ever written, so bless all y'all. And celebrations on top of that, we've crossed the 50k line! PPITG is officially NaNoWriMo standard! Gold star for everyone!
> 
> Now for fun stuff!
> 
> [ART!!! BEAUTIFUL ART!!!](http://you-can-revolt.tumblr.com/post/138085323503/reys-time-is-split-between-the-camp-and-a-little)  
> [MORE AMAZING ART!!!!!!!](http://reyborne.tumblr.com/post/138385074332/life-was-ok-until-i-watched-this-movie-i-swear)  
> Not one but _two_ [updated](http://8tracks.com/500shadesofblue/purest-place) [playlists](http://8tracks.com/500shadesofblue/raging-sun) from 500shadesofblue! Yesss!  
> [And I made a playlist!](http://8tracks.com/clockworkcourier/dagobah-and-chill)

Kylo walks through the swamps of Dagobah feeling like there’s a storm brewing inside his own head. Their trek back to the hut is quiet, but there’s nothing less than pure cacophony in him. This isn’t pain anymore, or anger, or fear. He can’t label this feeling as _anything_ , and the only thing he wants to do is hide himself away and wait it out. He feels so open, so _vulnerable_ , and he doesn’t know what to do.  
  
He knows that the girl can feel the riot in him. He doesn’t have to project and she doesn’t have to pry in order to feel it. There’s something similar in her, sliding like a great monster underneath a placid surface. At the moment, however, he doesn’t have the need or even the strength to reach in and uncover what she saw. He’s exhausted and thoroughly rattled. Kylo needs time to think, to sort through everything, to weigh and adjust and repair what ever has been broken. The hardest part is that he doesn’t know where to start, as his mind is caught in this whirlwind and trying to capture a single thought is like trying to catch water flowing through his fingers.   
  
The only thing that seems solid is her, and he doesn’t resist the instinctual need to be beside her. She came to him once he got out of the cave, offering nothing but support, and he couldn’t reject her. He didn’t _want_ to, and it only serves to confuse him more. She didn’t have to be at his side. From her behavior and her thoughts from the last few days, he thought she might have believed he deserved it. That isn’t to say that she might not have thought it at all, but she didn’t act on it. She didn’t leave him to wallow in it, or even to walk alone.   
  
Kylo wonders if she needed a crutch as much as she did.  
  
Her presence is a weight, an anchor, and he uses it as his starting point. It grounds him, even as they walk on the unstable terrain of the swamp. She’s alive, a human presence on a horrible, wretched planet. The vision of her on the dais, nearly decapitated, flashes through his mind unbidden, and it makes his stomach turn itself into knots. He can’t help the quick jerk that goes through him, like a flinch, and she notices.   
  
Her arm is still touching his, and she looks up at him, confused and concerned. She’s never looked at him like that before, and after today, she might never do it again. Everything about the situation is so volatile and changeable.  
  
“I’m fine,” he says, _rasps._ His voice is so weak, from screaming or crying or something in between. He can still feel Anakin’s disembodied hand on his throat, clenching and lifting him, and Kylo has to squeeze his eyes shut to try to dissipate the sensation.  
  
She’s not convinced. Far from it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks. It’s a loaded question, and bigger than it sounds. Kylo knows she has her own burden from the cave, and that it’s heavy on her shoulders.   
  
“Not... Not yet,” he replies, and he’s honestly surprised at himself. He would have said no. He _should_ say no. He’s spent over a decade learning how to curb his needs and his wants, to alchemize pain into power.  
  
That was before the truth, though, something tells him. _What do you have left?_  
  
Not yet, then. He _will_ talk about it.   
  
She gives him an odd look, like she may be thinking the same thing. Yet she also manages to look somewhat disappointed. He knows he has to make an addendum. “I have to... think about things, I guess,” he admits. It sounds so childish, so behind him, but it’s all he can say. His vulnerability is at a peak, raw and open like a bloody wound.   
  
She nods. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Me, too.”  
  
That’s the unspoken agreement, and it gives him the oddest feeling. They are going to talk about what they saw, after they come to their own terms. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, and he doesn’t know what she saw or how much she’ll reveal, but the thought of it alone is enough to make him feel strangely anxious. It’s like sensing oncoming defeat, but there’s nothing to be defeated by. There’s nothing she can dominate or destroy that hasn’t already been put into malleable question.   
  
And what is she going to think of you? the voice asks. It sounds like his voice, but different. The tonality is strange, uneasy, _skittish_ if he has to pick a word. Insecurity tightens it. _She’s going to hear that everything you did was for nothing._  
  
It isn’t something he considered before, and it’s just another breath of wind to add to the tempest. He hasn’t been worried about the opinions of others for a long time, save for the Supreme Leader. It really has taken the force to move a mountain to reduce him to anxiety over what someone like her would think.   
  
He tries to steel himself, using techniques that should be as easy as breathing to execute, but something fails. It’s like there’s a brittle part, rusty and beyond repair, crippling under the weight of any screw or nail trying to hold it together.   
  
Then, he feels a warm weight on his arm, and everything seems to drain out and quiet itself, just for a moment. Kylo looks down and sees her hand on his forearm, fingers clenched in the leather of his flight jacket. She’s not looking at him, instead staring straight ahead at the gray-green tangle of Dagobah.   
  
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say a single word.   
  
He doesn’t need to.  
  
\---  
  
They return to the hut when the evening of Dagobah crawls in as a gray mist. The rain has passed, and all that’s left is the oncoming chill of night. Rey and Kylo separate without a word, although there’s a passing glance of understanding that passes between the two of them. They don’t need to affirm each other, or ask what comes next. Both of them know that it’s something to be saved for later. She watches Kylo walk over to the water’s edge, where the jutting peninsula of land gives way to the swamp. He sits on the edge of a decimated tree stump, and that’s the extent of his movement. His own mind is his best company, and Rey leaves him to it.  
  
She goes back into the hut and busies herself with making another fire. It’s something to distract her hands, to make her think of anything but the vision in the cave. Kylo was her distraction before, but she knows better than to reach out to him at that moment. What she could potentially see is not meant for her.  
  
Her hands go through the motions, collecting slivers of wood from the remainders of the furniture, arranging them in the alcove chimney, lighting them with a tool from her bag. The slivers give way to a bright yellow flame, and as Rey sits cross-legged in front of it, she tries to focus on it again.  
  
Light. Her mind stutters on the thought, and fear fills her again. Obi-Wan said she defeated the phantom in her vision, but Rey feels like she defeated _nothing_. She doesn’t know if what she saw was the manifestation of her fears, or a vision of the future. The Jedi had told her to walk in the Light, to walk beside them, but now it seems as if that path is tainted.   
  
She thinks about the monster’s manifestation in the Force. Unending, horrible, _brilliant_ Light, so bright that it left no room for darkness. There was no shadow, nothing to give it shape. It was raw and uncontained, colorless in its appearance, as cold as frostbite and as hot as a scorching flame. Worst of all, it was _her_. All her friends were dead at her feet, killed by a lightsaber that didn’t cauterize. There was no one left to stop her, nothing to corrupt her, no hint of the Dark side marring any part of her. She was what the Jedi taught her to aspire to be. She was a being of Light, and she was nightmarish.  
  
Rey’s hands tremble where they clench in the fabric of her pants. Tears threaten the edges of her eyes, and when she tries to take in a breath, it’s a shuddering hiccup. Her teeth clench hard enough to hurt.  
  
“I don’t understand,” she says aloud, her voice strained with a sob that she fights to hold back. Her bottom lip quivers and she bites down on it. “I don’t... I’m trying my best. I’m doing everything that you said, everything Master Luke said. I faced it, and now I don’t know what to do!” Rey sniffs and closes her eyes, feeling her tears snake down her cheeks.   
  
She doesn’t feel any other presences in the hut. It’s just her, fundamentally alone, and it stings.  
  
“Please,” she whispers. More tears fall. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” _I don’t want that to be my future_ goes unsaid.   
  
Still no answer. Hurt wrenches in her chest. Rey hastily wipes at her eyes, tries to control her breathing, but the tears keep coming.   
  
Then, as quiet as a whisper, “ _Rey?_ ”  
  
Rey turns, and sitting on the nook to her right is Anakin Skywalker. He looks sympathetic, eyebrows raised, mouth set in a crooked half-smile.   
  
It strikes her that she hasn’t formally seen him since she tried to meditate and broke down after Kylo arrived. For that matter, they haven’t really spoken since he broke Kylo’s arm, which is something she’s still yet to completely thank him for. Rey sniffs, and scrubs irritably at her face before she lets out a humorless laugh. “You know, one day you and I are going to talk and I won’t be crying or in the middle of being throttled,” she manages, a little embarrassed that her voice comes out in a croak.  
  
“ _I’m looking forward to it,_ ” he replies, resting his chin on his hand. “ _I would ask if you’re alright, but I think you just answered that for me._ ”  
  
Rey sighs and puts her hands back on her knees. “No, I’m not particularly great,” she says, sniffing again. “If I’m being honest, I feel rather terrible.”  
  
“ _Being honest is a good start,_ ” Anakin says. His smile fades a little, and his expression becomes a considerably more serious. “ _Can I ask what you saw?_ ”  
  
Her stomach clenches again, and she nods. “It was... I don’t know how to explain it. I was looking at myself, but it wasn’t _me._ It was like a monster, except it was wearing my face,” she says, and tears spring back into her eyes, unbidden. Her voice gets tighter. “And it had killed everyone, all of my friends, and...” She trails off, but her mind goes to Kylo, to the decimated horror that he was reduced to.   
  
She has no doubt Anakin reads her mind. He doesn’t cringe, or really give any signs of disgust. He just nods.   
  
Rey goes on, a sob already straining in her throat. “And when I looked at her, really _looked_ , she was just... Light. She wasn’t anything from the Dark side. Then I... I killed her, with _his_ lightsaber, but it became something else and...” Rey’s hands start trembling again, the phantom feeling of cold blood on her hands, the metal hilt of an unfamiliar lightsaber a heavy weight in her palm. She can almost see the cyan glow of the blade, and _that_ is familiar, but she doesn’t know why.   
  
“ _And you’re confused,_ ” Anakin finishes for her. “ _You’ve been told time and time again that you should be aligned with the Light side of the force, that the Dark side is evil. So why would someone do something that cruel if they weren’t part of the Dark side?_ ”  
  
Wordlessly, she nods. He’s summed it up very efficiently.   
  
Anakin leans back in the nook with a sigh. He crosses one leg over the other before looking out at the murky darkness of Dagobah through the half-crushed porthole. “ _You know, I’ve got a theory, if you care to hear it,_ ” he says. When she doesn’t protest, he goes on. “ _I think that someone got it wrong, all those thousands of years ago. The Jedi, the Sith, what ever you want to call them now. Someone thought that there has to be this perfect line right down the middle of the Force, and you can’t cross it or else you’re purely good or purely bad. They tell you that once you’ve gone to the Dark side, you can’t come back, like this border’s just closed off to you forever. Someone came up with all this, and everyone just took it as fact._ ”   
  
“It’s what the Jedi told me,” Rey says quietly, wiping at her eyes again.   
  
Anakin smirks and rolls his eyes. “ _Who? Obi-Wan? Yoda?”_  
  
“Both.”  
  
“ _They’re from that school of thought, but I think you’ll find Obi-Wan is a lot more lenient... post-demise, at least,_ ” he replies. Then, he laughs, and it’s hard to hear the bitterness in it. “ _And that’s a lot coming from me, right? Seeing as I’m the one who killed him._ ”  
  
Rey’s eyes widen. “You what?”  
  
“ _I did it,_ ” he says easily, almost _casually._ “ _And that’s the point, though. Do you know how many people I killed as Vader? People you would call innocent, casualties of war. But after all of that, all those things that you can say are deplorable, I’m still sitting here. I’m on Dagobah with my former master, and his master, and all the other Jedi before them, and there’s nothing wrong with that, apparently._ ”  
  
She frowns and looks him over, and then looks at him _again_ in the Force. He’s still a blazing sun, roaring bright and powerful. He’s not tamped down by darkness in the least, and it’s confusing to her. “How?” she asks. How can a being with that much Light in them destroy so many lives? He was _Darth Vader_ , a name that struck fear so deep into the galaxy that the tremors could still be felt.  
  
“ _Light doesn’t mean good, Rey,_ ” he answers, clearly reading her mind. “ _Have you ever thought that you were so right about something that there was absolutely no way you could be wrong?_ ”  
  
Absolutely, Rey thinks. She remembers going to Niima Outpost, knowing the precise value of the parts she carried, feeling hope replacing emptiness in her stomach. She had sold things for the exact same portions before, and some of the parts had been in worse shape than what she carried. And then Unkar Plutt spurned her, gave her far less than what the pieces were worth. She knew better, without a shadow of a doubt.   
  
“ _And what would you have been willing to give to see yourself proven right?_ ”  
  
Nearly anything. Portion upon portion, just to see Unkar’s distended, bloated face when he realized he couldn’t get away with it. She would have given her speeder and her simulators just to be treated fairly.   
  
He nods and leans forward again, elbows resting on his knees. “ _Imagine feeling that righteous, that justified, and then think of that on the scale of whole planets. Billions of sentient beings, all at your mercy._ ”  
  
It’s hard to, especially since the galaxy seemed so enormous compared to her comparatively tiny world on Jakku. She still has a hard time imagining populations in the billions and beyond, so it’s harder still to picture that one little feeling applying to so many people.   
  
And she pictures Starkiller in lieu of it, that angry beam of red light just a pale string against the stunning blue of the Takodana sky. Righteousness in the face of billions of lives. Expendable, if only to prove a point.  
  
“ _You’ve got it,_ ” Anakin says. “ _It’s so much easier to justify your actions when the numbers you’re up against are so big that you can’t put faces and names to them. It’s easy to just push a button, and even easier to make someone else do it for you._ ”  
  
“I couldn’t do that to people I know,” Rey stresses, feeling anxious at the thought. She doesn’t want to even try to see eye-to-eye with the people in charge of a thing like Starkiller, but here she sits with one of the most foreboding and frightening figures in the galaxy’s history.   
  
Said figure just gives her a peculiar, guarded smile. “ _I didn’t think I could either, but I did,_ ” he replies, and his voice has this odd note of sad wisdom. It’s knowledge gained at an enormous price. “ _I went to the Dark side to protect people, and I ended up hurting or killing all of them in some way or another. People like Obi-Wan, or my own wife._ ”  
  
Luke and Leia’s mother. Rey doesn’t know her name, but something tells her that Anakin loved her dearly. If he hurt her, or worse, then the outlook of her own future seems far more grim, closer to the vision in the cave. Rey looks away from him then, staring morosely down at a patch of floor where the metal grating is visible.   
  
He moves without a sound, and pale blue fills the edges of her vision as he sits in front of her. “ _Rey,_ ” he says. His hands go out to hers, and she feels his fingers on the back of her hands. It’s the slightest amount of pressure accompanied by a sensation not unlike the feeling of a limb waking up. At the same time, the sun that signifies his presence is brighter in her mind, and colors flood the space around it. They morph, change into memories, and for a brief moment, she sees events of his life, the faces of people he met and loved and cared for, the faces of people he hated and loathed. Some of those things overlap, and it’s frightening. She sees the face of a young woman, incredibly beautiful, the sunlight catching traces of auburn in her hair, her smile so radiant and kind that Rey feels a tug in her chest, like sadness and hope moving together. She wonders if she feels what Anakin felt.  
  
And then the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rey sees him younger, his hair cut short save for a thin braid, and then older, older still. He ages in Anakin’s mind, accompanied by a wide array of emotion. It’s jarring how quickly adoration switches to hatred, and when her mind fills with images of raging lava and the sound of clashing lightsabers, she thinks she understands. It was nothing Anakin wanted for himself or anyone else. He was resolute in his feelings and his wants, and for the longest time, he felt that he was doing the right thing.  
  
When she sees Obi-Wan, aged and gray, and then sees bright red cross her vision, she feels it as vividly as he did. _Regret._  
  
He had felt it before, with the image of a sarcophagus cast in the gentle colors of sun through stained glass. She can hear his voice in her head, solemn and mourning.  
  
_Padmé._   
  
His ghost comes back into view, his hands still on hers. There’s something peculiar in his face, something like sorrow, or at least the wisdom that accompanies it. “ _Do you see now? It’s not so easy to define Light and Dark, just like it’s not easy to say what’s good or what’s bad._ ”  
  
“You thought what you were doing was justified,” Rey says softly. “Until when?”  
  
“ _That’s hard to say. I had doubts hundreds of times. We all do,_ ” he replies, and a warm sensation spreads across the back of her hands. “ _But I think truthfully, it was when I met my son, when I realized he was mine. I thought that I wasn’t made for the Light side, that I could never touch it again, after what I did. I didn’t even think it was wrong, even when I was told that my wife had died and it was my fault. I did blame myself, but then I thought that atoning was right._ ”  
  
Another vision, as quick and bright as lightning. Rey sees a horrific face, yellow eyes sunken into a pale mess of scars and pockmarks. _The Emperor,_ something tells her.   
  
He nods at her thoughts. “ _He had been planning it the entire time, and I willingly became his apprentice. Even after I realized what he had done, I stayed._ ”  
  
Realization jerks her, stuns her like a jolt of electricity. It must travel through the temporary bond between her and the ghost, because he sighs and nods again.  
  
“ _History does repeat itself. My grandson faces something very similar.”_ He pauses before looking at her, looking _into_ her. “ _But this isn’t about that right now. This is about you and what you saw. You don’t want to face that future, and you’re scared that it’s entirely possible. You want to do the right thing, to be good, to walk in the Light. But those things aren’t related, Rey, no matter what the Jedi tell you. They just happen to fall into the same lot more often that not._ ”  
  
It’s hard to process that, especially given that this is coming from someone who was Darth Vader, of all people. She’s seen these beings of the Force, in different forms of light and goodness, and she knows of their deeds. She’s heard far less of someone on the Dark side doing something good, if she’s heard anything at all.   
  
“How?” she asks. Despite herself, she sounds desperate for an answer. “Everything about the Dark side seems wrong! If there’s no distinction, then why does it seem like there is?”  
  
Anakin manages a smile, and it’s both knowing and wistful. “ _The mistake is thinking that there are only two sides of this whole ordeal. It’s thinking that there are only the Jedi, only the Sith, and it’s easy to put them on two sides and say that there’s nothing more you can do. We want it to be that simple. But there’s that border I was talking about. It’s not razor-thin, Rey. You can actually walk on it and cross it. You felt it when you came here, didn’t you? The Dark side didn’t seem so threatening._ ”  
  
When she traveled into Kylo’s mind and found the memory he hung onto. She remembers very well, and it only serves to confuse her more. “No, it didn’t, but then Yoda said--”  
  
He rolls his eyes. “ _As wise as Yoda is, he’s from a different time. Things have changed, and that might mean that it’s time to change how we think of the Force. Obviously, the old method hasn’t worked out too well.”_ Anakin moves one hand up to touch her right temple, and his fingers have all the pressure of a gentle breeze. “ _Think about your meditation. When you felt the Force, what did it seem like? How would you describe it to someone who has never felt it?_ ”  
  
All at once, she feels like she slips into the orchestral beauty of the Force. She sees the massive array of lights, constellations of life and breath arcing wide and beautiful across the universe. She hears the arrangement of it, the highs and the lows, an eternal song that suspends everything on invisible lines, as if every life out there is in rapt attention. She feels it, the way she called on it when she fought Kylo, how it rose to meet her and gave her the power of a nova, how it worked at her command, and yet never seemed submissive.  
  
“It’s... music,” she says, her eyes closing as she takes it all in. “And lights, and this _feeling_ like... I don’t know how to describe it.” It’s like every emotion, heightened, blended together, coursing through her and moving in real time as every life feels something different. She feels the universe’s aches and pains, but its joy and its rapture as well. She feels each birth and each death, every celebration, every moment of grief.  
  
“ _You can’t,_ ” she hears him say. “ _It’s impossible. That’s what the Force is. But tell me, could you see and hear all of it without the Dark side?_ ”  
  
No, she thinks. She sees the darkness in the distance, the space between each individual light, the emptiness and blackness that gives the lights their shape and their color. It defines each one. And for the song, she hears the low tones giving the high ones their richness, their liveliness. It would sound thin and empty without it.   
  
“ _And what if it was all Light? What would happen then?_ ”  
  
It would be horrible. There would be no color, no definition. There would be nothing to see, just as it would be if it was all Dark.   
  
“ _They have to exist together,_ ” he says. “ _Without both, there is no Force. There has to be a balance._ ”  
  
She thinks of that balance, the combination of sounds in the Force that make the music that she hears. The ridge of light and dark that gives the lights their shape. If she focuses too much on the Light, she will become the nightmare in the vision. If she falls into the Dark, then she’s no better off.   
  
“ _You’re powerful, Rey,_ ” Anakin says, and she feels as if she’s standing beside him, gazing out at the Force and all of its wonders. “ _No matter what side you end up on, you’re going to be one of the strongest. If you stay in the middle, if you maintain the balance, then the galaxy is going to be so much better off._ ”  
  
“And the Jedi?” she asks.   
  
“ _They won’t abandon you. They’ll learn,_ ” he says, and she allows herself to believe that, to absorb some of his confidence.   
  
She fades back into her own body, and Anakin lowers his hand to rest on hers again. He’s smiling at her, more earnestly now, and it makes her wonder of the possibilities, if he had followed the path that he advised her to follow. He was so strong, strong enough that she can still feel his power even in death. His hands seem even warmer on hers, and if she thinks on it hard enough, she can almost pretend that he’s alive.   
  
“Thank you,” she says, and without warning, tears come to her eyes. She doesn’t know why she’s crying, and even he seems a little surprised.   
  
Then, he grins, and it’s the same crooked half-cocked smile from before. “ _So much for you not crying,_ ” he says. “ _I’ll do better next time._ ”  
  
She has to laugh, and it’s not self-deprecating or humorless. It’s authentic, pushing through her tears. She moves one hand out from under his to wipe at her eyes. “I mean it, though,” she says. “I was so scared, and I think I still am. But it doesn’t feel so terrible or real now. Now it just feels like I woke up from a nightmare and all I have to do is shake it off.”  
  
“ _That’s a good plan, though. As good a time as ever to start training, right?_ ”   
  
Rey remembers Obi-Wan’s whisper in the back of her mind back at Maz Kanata’s castle: _These are your first steps._ She’s still afraid, still apprehensive about a future she can’t predict, still worried that what she saw in the cave may be possible, but for the first time since she came to Dagobah, she doesn’t rid herself of it. Fear makes her cautious, and from her experience on Jakku, being cautious is what kept her from getting killed. Fear is what will keep her from becoming that monster.  
  
Anakin smiles at her, and it’s all warmth. “ _Now you’ve got it._ ”  
  
When his ghost fades away, she doesn’t feel the emptiness that she expected. She hasn’t been abandoned, and she has the distinct feeling that she won’t be, no matter what she chooses to do. It’s too early to make a complete decision, too soon with the wounds still fresh from the cave. But it’s a start, and she feels confident enough to take the first step along the line between Light and Dark.  
  
She wonders what Kylo will do, and what he’s feeling now. They’ll talk when both of them are ready, she knows, and for once, she’s looking forward to it.  
  
\---  
  
For the first time in a long while, Kylo Ren thinks about Luke Skywalker, and it isn’t with the intent to destroy. He thinks about Luke’s time on Dagobah and the stories he told about it.   
  
Dagobah was a slimy, backwater, desolate mudhole, according to him. It was too humid, too wet, the bugs were relentless, and the entire planet seemed to be alive. He talked about the dragonsnakes as violent, hungry creatures, and how he killed the biggest one, not too far away from where Kylo sat now. Every description of the planet made Kylo wonder why anyone would go there if not for exile like Yoda, and why Luke would go there willingly.   
  
_To find the truth_ , Luke had said.   
  
His uncle was much younger when he told the story. His beard was just starting to come in, roughing the edges of his jaw. There were little wrinkles starting to form at the edges of his eyes, _laugh lines_ as his mother called them. He smiled more then, laughed often. His stories were full of adventure, about the X-wings at the Battle of Yavin and the explosion of the Death Star, about Hoth with the bloodthirsty wampa and the AT-ATs falling like enormous beasts, about Endor and the ewoks and how Threepio became some kind of living god to them. It all seemed so fantastical back then, like there was no way that the figures in the stories were his parents and his uncle and all the creatures and droids he grew up with, and that the villain was his own grandfather.  
  
Dagobah seemed to be one of the strangest stories. Kylo remembers playing in one of the houses he and his mother would live in when she would work with the Senate. He would jump from one piece of furniture to the next, pretending they were the enormous trees from his uncle’s story. More than once, he pretended he was lifting the X-wing from the swamp like Yoda, and at best, he could manage to lift a couch cushion if he tried hard enough. Sometimes, if Artoo was nearby, he would imagine the dragonsnake eating him and spitting him back out, and then he would laugh hysterically when Artoo would scream like it was happening again. Sometimes, the droid would even fall to the ground, twitching and beeping pathetically, and Ben would laugh and use all his strength to push him back up.   
  
Being on Dagobah now brings these memories back, and it leaves Kylo feeling something like hollowness. He’s lived so many parts of those stories. He’s seen most of the planets from Luke’s stories, and he can’t ignore the irony of wearing an X-wing pilot’s jacket. Perhaps traitorously, he wonders what seven year old Ben would think of him, and it makes him feel all the more morose.  
  
_I’m the villain in those stories,_ he thinks bitterly. It’s not the first time he’s thought that, for that matter. But since he entered the cave, it’s the first time he’s thought of it and it mattered. _Why? Because I might have wasted almost two decades of my life?_  
  
Kylo lets out a sigh and scrubs at his face with his good hand.   
  
He doesn’t want to believe what happened in the cave was real. There is no part of him that wants to accept that the ghost was Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker, telling him that he had been lied to, led astray, compelled to destroy everything he might have had for himself based on the ventriloquism of his master. Yet the images of his own ghost flash through his mind, white-hot and searing, accompanied by the visions of his own future, filled with fire and strife that all but ends the galaxy.  
  
Above all, he doesn’t want it to have been for nothing. His skin bares every scar, and his instincts have been changed to suit his lessons. If it’s truly a lie, then he has nothing to show for it, and nothing to go back to. It’s a sinking feeling, and it reeks of loss and emptiness.   
  
He clenches his fists and feels his wrist ache. _Good,_ he thinks. It’s something, and it distracts him from the enormity of everything else. The fact is, he has to accept one thing or the other as the absolute truth, and it isn’t a choice to be made lightly. It’s a life-defining thing, and it will do absolutely nothing for him to teeter between one side or the other. Either he is going to go back to Snoke and assume that the Supreme Leader has been honest with him and he will continue the path he chose all those years ago, or he’s going to turn away from it, potentially under his own grandfather’s guidance, and be forced to accept his status as a criminal, murderer, and traitor, things that have been plaguing his mind for years. He doesn’t know what is at the end of the latter route, and he thinks it would be a far more simple thing to resume his original course.   
  
But then there’s the _girl._ She’s somehow single-handedly upturned almost everything he’s built for himself. She’s not a _nobody_ anymore, not a sand rat from Jakku like he snidely informed her that she was. There’s something beyond just simple potential in her, and through only a few actions, she has him doubting so much about himself and the world he’s immersed himself in. Between claiming his grandfather’s lightsaber and defeating him in combat with almost no training aside from a quarterstaff, he doesn’t know where to start with her.   
  
He _has_ to talk to her. He said he would, and now he has to make good on it, or else he won’t be able to proceed. The choice looms before him like the darkness of the cave, and all of his doubts fringe on it.   
  
Kylo closes his eyes and tries to regulate his breathing, focusing on the trills and chirps of the creatures in the swamp. He thinks of his decision, of the girl, of the memories that do nothing but draw him closer and closer to that border between Light and Dark.  
  
He thinks of Dagobah, and something that his uncle told him years ago.  
  
_No one leaves Dagobah unchanged._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> Anakin: Okay, so about your grandkid--  
> Obi-Wan: You take care of it.  
> Anakin: ...What?  
> Obi-Wan: I have been putting up with your shit for years, including _after death_ , Anakin. I deserve at least one nap to make up for you fucking up the galaxy from _beyond the grave_.  
>  Anakin: But--  
> Obi-Wan: >:(  
> Anakin: _Fine_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, new chapter, new chapter _yaaaay!_ You're all the most patient people in the whole wide world, and I would like to personally go to the Vatican and nominate you all for sainthood. The best I can do is write my plea out on a paper airplane and throw it roughly in the direction of the Vatican. 
> 
> This chapter's a wee bit shorter than the last two, but personally, I think it's more emotionally-loaded. I really enjoyed writing it (with a two day break in the middle because I got a new dog!) and I hope y'all enjoy reading it. I love all of you very much and I hope your day is fantastic and maybe you find money on the ground or someone gives you really good news and it makes your day. <3

Rey doesn’t know when she fell asleep. She doesn’t remember it, instead finding herself leaning up against a cracked support beam and blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Her head feels foggy, and the edges of her awareness are fuzzy, but she feels surprisingly rested. The morning light coming through the cracks in the ceiling isn’t gray for once. It’s clear and bright and _sunny_ , and it jerks her completely awake. She grins at the realization, but her momentarily delight is stalled by the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber being used outside.   
  
It’s definitely _his_ , as she can hear the distinct crackling noise accompanying the hum as the weapon is swung. As she edges towards the door, she can hear it hit something, shrieking on contact. When she crawls out into the daylight, she sees Kylo with his back turned to her, flight jacket discarded on a low-hanging branch, shoulders rising up and down with each heavy breath, his lightsaber in his good hand, and an absolutely _decimated_ remainder of a tree stump in front of him. The thing looks like it’s been charred by a fire, with deep, smoking gouges embedded deep in the wood.   
  
Kylo doesn’t notice her, as he grips the lightsaber with both hands, his left serving as his dominant for the moment, and hits the stump again, pushing the blade in hard so that it sparks bright red. He turns to his left just enough for her to see part of his profile, and she sees that he’s gritting his teeth.   
  
Then, he catches sight of her and the lightsaber turns off with a receding hiss. He doesn’t put it away as he turns, but she sees him take in a deep breath before he looks at her, brow furrowed.   
  
Rey does a quick, subtle sweep, and she feels his anger, but it’s different. It’s not blasting outward like the heat of a furnace, the way it usually is. This is internal, burning at his insides, threatening to boil over. In the time he has had with his own thoughts, something must have gone wrong.   
  
Any words fall short of being spoken, trapped in her throat, barricaded by her nerves and something that isn’t quite fear, but feels similar. She can’t ask if he’s alright, because it doesn’t take brilliance to know that he’s far from it. There isn’t a proper question that she can ask and feel secure in asking. Even after what they’ve been through, even after the step up in their consideration of each other, there are boundaries she’s hesitant to cross, if not completely unable to. Yet Rey knows that they can’t proceed like this, can’t resume their repelling magnetism and pretend that what happened in the cave and what happened afterward never occurred.   
  
One question makes it through the barrier, and it’s stiff and quiet as she asks it. “Are you ready to talk?”  
  
Something stirs in his expression. His jaw clenches, his eyes are set on her like she’s something to be wary of. Then, slowly, deliberately, he clips his lightsaber to a belt loop. It’s personal disarmament, a sign that Rey doesn’t take for granted.  
  
“Yes,” he says. Nothing in his body language suggests that he wants to, or that he’s ready at all, but Rey believes they both understand the same concept. They need to work through this, sooner rather than later, or they never will at all.   
  
Rey finds a relatively dry spot underneath a left-listing gnarltree, its lower branches nearly touching the ground. As she sits, she thinks of the position they were in only days before, fighting with death as the intention. She thinks of the way he fought, as if her mere presence incensed him to the point of madness, the way his strikes were both choreographed and mindless. As he sits across from her, long legs folded in, eyes trained on the ground, she can’t help but inwardly marvel at the difference. There’s nothing about him that suggests authority at the moment, just reluctant deference. She won’t say that he isn’t the man that interrogated her or fought with her. He still is, as much as she can read it in his face. He’s still angry, seething under the surface, and his intentions, while faded, haven’t been banished from his mind. He’s just humbled, or at least subdued in the face of his lack of choices.  
  
No, he has choices now, and one of them rests against his hip. Left-handed or not, he can still fight her. There’s very little stopping him from activating his lightsaber, crossing the small distance between them and skewering her where she sits. He could, and he could consider his mission fulfilled even if Anakin’s ghost came after him or not. But he doesn’t. His hand doesn’t go near the hilt. Instead, aside from his anger, he seems to be sullen.  
  
She doesn’t realize how long she looks at him before he finally raises his eyes to meet hers. The corner of his mouth quirks just a fraction, not quite enough to be called a smirk. “Are you talking first, or am I going to have to?” he asks.   
  
“Do you want to?”  
  
“Not really,” he replies. He rests his elbows on his knees and sighs through his nose, shifting his stare to the dirt. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”  
  
She doesn’t expect anything, mostly because she doesn’t _know_ what to expect. Rey doesn’t know if he’s going to tell her precisely what he saw in the cave, or how he felt about it, or how he’s feeling now. She also doesn’t know if he’s going to lie, or clam up and say very little. They have to be honest with each other, this much she knows. It’s difficult for her to explain, even to herself, but it feels like so much is resting on this tiny moment in time, like it’s a locked gateway leading to something bigger. She’s facing someone who was, and very well could still be her enemy, and there is a possibility that they may walk away from this remaining that way. Yet there’s also the possibility of something changing, like it did when they left the cave.   
  
“Do you want me to go first?” she asks.   
  
He doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at her, and there’s something like acquiescence in his face.   
  
It’s hard to begin, even after she spoke to Anakin. There is more to it than just a story. This isn’t a junkyard tale like the ones passed around on Jakku. This is an experience, a message, a _warning_ , and she struggles to find a way to get that across.   
  
“After I got separated from you in the cave, I kept walking,” she starts, focusing on her hands loosely folded in her lap. “I figured it was no use trying to find a way out. Then, I thought I had heard something deeper in the cave, and I decided to follow the sound.”  
  
It comes back to her far too easily. It hasn’t been a full day since she went, but the image is crystal clear, like a holofilm playing back in her head. “There was blood on the ground, and then bodies. Dozens of them.” Her hands turn and tighten on the fabric of her pants. “The further I went, the more there were. I couldn’t count them, and all I wanted to do was get out. They were just... All of them were murdered. It was like someone had torn them apart.”  
  
It’s so real to her, so much so that her stomach clenches and nausea fills her. She tries to focus on what Obi-Wan told her, that it was only a vision, that no one had died. Then she thinks of Anakin and his hard-won wisdom. It does very little to quell her fear, as it’s so vivid that it’s hard to extinguish.  
  
Her voice is tight and strained in her own ears when she speaks again. “I ended up in a chamber filled with bodies, and there was another person standing there with a lightsaber. I knew...” Her voice catches, her fists tightening and her knuckles going white. “I knew she had killed them. She pointed to them, and I saw... I saw Poe, and Finn, and General Organa, Master Luke. They were all just torn apart. It was _horrible._ ”   
  
Hot tears threaten to fall again, and Rey hates that even after speaking to Anakin, she wants to cry. It feels like she’s mourning the people she saw, like Obi-Wan had lied to her, concealing the truth that she had killed them. She still feels blood on her hands, tacky and cold as it dries, and it causes her to look up at the one victim that breaks the illusion the vision still has on her.  
  
Kylo’s stare is even and steady as it rests on her. There’s something almost unreadable, but it passes between them, and she knows that he somehow understands. He doesn’t move or say a word, but urges her on mentally. It’s a subtle push, just enough for her to go on.  
  
“When I looked back at her, I saw the body she was standing over, on some kind of platform. She told me to look at it, and...” The vision flashes in her mind, and without thinking, she projects it. It’s easier to do that than to try to describe it. She sees his corpse, his head a mess of blood and torn flesh, his face barely distinguishable, and his half-melted lightsaber resting in a pool of his blood.   
  
To his credit, he doesn’t move, _barely_ reacts. But Rey can see it, the faint tightening at the corners of his eyes, the slight downturn to his mouth, the rigid set of his jaw. He sees it as she did, his own corpse deformed by a cold blade, his identity destroyed and turned into a gory, horrendous display. When she reaches and brushes against his mind, she can feel something like discomfort on the surface, and she knows it must go far deeper than that.   
  
“You saw me,” he says, even though he’s seeing it as an image suspended between them. There’s something akin to disbelief in his voice, and a thought passes through him faster than she can process it.   
  
“Yes, and I saw _her._ ” She projects again, filling their shared space with the image of the other Rey, cold and bright and _so_ horrific. “She was just... I couldn’t understand it. I could feel her in the Force, but it was just Light. I didn’t think the Light could be so terrible.”  
  
When he looks at her this time, his expression is clouded, perhaps doubtful. It’s hard to tell how he feels, and their temporary bond does nothing to help her. Something between them is hazy, and she can’t tell if he’s making it that way on purpose or it’s something they’re accidentally doing together.  
  
Her mind proceeds through the memory, and she watches the other Rey walk toward her in slow, easy steps. She feels her shoulder burn with a bruise that she knows she won’t find now, just as much as she feels the stone beneath her as she falls, and the sensation of Kylo’s body at her back, even as he sits in front of her, very much alive. “She said she had to destroy everything Dark. And she said I was Dark, so she had to destroy me. She tried,” Rey says. She tries to channel Anakin, to walk along that gray line between the two sides. It’s not that simple, and she feels like she’s already stumbling in confusion.   
  
Rey knows the moment when he sees what goes through her mind, of the burning red beam of light in her hands, the warmth radiating from the quillons of his own lightsaber onto her skin. He gazes at her, recognition in his eyes. She can’t help but remember the feeling of relief at the sight of it piercing the monster in front of her, the full knowledge that it was _his_ , and that somehow, it saved her when Anakin Skywalker’s could not.  
  
“When I struck her, the lightsaber changed in my hands. I can’t explain it, but it felt like it was _mine_. Not Luke’s, not yours. It was like something I had created, and it felt right,” Rey says. She yearns for the saber in her vision, and all at once, it seems like the lightsaber hanging from her belt is an unfamiliar weight. “I killed her with it,” she adds.  
  
She destroyed _herself_ with it. The impact of that is not lost. A blade forged in her own hand, plunged into the chest of something like her shadow. The problem is trying to divine the true meaning of it, if it means destroying the Light inside of her, if what Anakin said is true and the best thing for her is the middle path. Rey refuses to succumb to the Dark side, but there’s clearly something wrong with doing the same thing with the Light.  
  
Yet Obi-Wan said that what she saw was a manifestation of her fears. She doesn’t forget that. What bothers her is that before that moment, she never feared the Light. Obi-Wan had told her to walk in it, to follow in the footprints of the Jedi before her. But the most horrific thing beyond the corpses and the thought that she was responsible for their deaths was that the Light caused it. It felt like a purge, wiping out an unseen pestilence.   
  
Anakin’s voice whispers in her mind once more as she dwells on it. _T_ _hey have to exist together. Without both, there is no Force. There has to be a balance._   
  
Kylo must hear it, as he sits up suddenly, eyes wide. Rey feels something on his end, a mental jerk like he’s been stunned. “You heard him?” he asks, and then immediately looks like he wants to rescind what he just said.   
  
They haven’t talked about the ghosts yet, she remembers. Even as Anakin stood over him after he broke Kylo’s arm, she hasn’t said a word. Slowly, Rey nods. “I hear them all the time,” she replies. It doesn’t feel strange to say it.   
  
“Then I wasn’t...” His left hand comes up and combs through his hair, something she suspects is a nervous habit.  
  
“I’ve seen them since I came here,” Rey goes on. “They’ve been training me, in their own way.”  
  
I wasn’t imagining it, she hears. Kylo shakes his head and rests his left hand in his lap. “And you saw Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says, voice low and cautious.  
  
Rey nods. “And your grandfather.”  
  
The mental jerk happens again, and a traitorous thought fights its way from his mind to hers. She sees Anakin’s ghost glowing pale blue in a black space. Half of his face changes in a matter of seconds, until all she sees is a mask, dark and terrifying. She hears the raspy hiss of a respirator before Kylo seems to reign his memory in. When she looks at him again, Kylo is screwing his eyes shut, breathing heavy through his nose.   
  
She realizes that the phantom of his grandfather was part of what he saw in the cave.   
  
“What happened?” she asks. Her voice is softer, without her intention. “What did you see?”  
  
He tries to put up another wall, but something curbs his ability to do so. It just feels like a haphazard attempt to shut her out. What finesse he might have had before has been completely drained away, leaving him mentally stumbling and grasping onto anything with a semblance of solidity. Something has shaken him, and it’s only left him worse off that he has to present this in front of her.  
  
She can feel him want to say something like _nothing happened_ , can feel his sheer need to _deny_ what he saw, to brush it off and say it wasn’t real so it doesn’t matter. Rey won’t let that happen, not after she laid the details of her vision in front of him. She allowed him to see her fears, her insecurities, after everything that he’s done. He doesn’t deserve the sort of pity that would allow him an excuse. Kylo Ren _owes_ her.  
  
Rey gathers herself, calls on the power in her core, and drives a wedge into his attempt at a wall. He flinches hard, tightens his fists in his lap, lowers his head, and she can see sweat beading along his neck.   
  
“Tell me,” she commands. It’s not a mind trick, nor her trying to mimic some kind of authority. She’s simply asserting herself, her will over his.  
  
\---  
  
He wants to _scream_. He wants to get up and leave and possibly run back to her camp to steal her X-wing fighter and get as far away from this damned planet as he can. He feels her presence in the Force press heavily on him, so much stronger than she was only a few months ago. She’s clearly been trained, but she’s also strong on her own. All he wants to do is get away from her, from _everything_ , even though he has no idea what to do even if he succeeded.  
  
But she won’t let him leave. He could stand up and walk away and she won’t drag him back, but her presence is always going to be there, waiting for him to speak. She isn’t trapping him, but he certainly _feels_ trapped.  
  
What can he say? How can he get it across to her that his entire life could very well have been a lie? Everything he’s built for himself, everything he’s destroyed to get there, it’s been for _nothing_. He’s been lied to, betrayed, been treated as nothing more than a mouthpiece, and despite all he has in the physical sense--the power, ability, and authority--he feels as if he has nothing to show for it. There’s nothing he can go back to in good confidence.  
  
Kylo Ren has never had any particular qualms over the blood on his hands. At first, he might have, but the more he killed, the more it was just another fluid, as commonplace as the water on Dagobah. Now, he feels every drop of it on his fingers, sliding between the junctions of his knuckles, the lines of his palms, until he’s so deep in it that he’s drowning. He’s killed so many in the name of something meaningless, to prove himself. Now the weight is unbearable, the scales so grossly tilted that he can see for the first time that there was no counterweight on the other end.   
  
He’s so deep in it that he almost doesn’t register her hand on his shoulder. When the sensation finally comes across in his mind, he flinches, eyes opening to see her staring at him. She doesn’t pity him, though he doesn’t have any room to be grateful. There’s intensity in her eyes, and he feels it in her fingers as they curl tightly against the fabric of his shirt.   
  
“What happened?” she asks again. She isn’t asking for her own sake, he realizes. She’s asking for _his_.   
  
It isn’t the Force that makes him speak. He does it on his own, half of a lifetime of words coming when they never could before. Over a decade of pushing them back, pressing them into a space where he thought they could be discarded. Years worth of pain, of anger, of being taught that what he felt needed to be weaponized rather than expressed. He can’t fight like that anymore, at least not now. He just feels like a child, weeping and trembling, trying to explain why he feels what he does with all the articulation of someone unskilled with emotions.   
  
She never takes her hand off his shoulder, and he doesn’t make her.  
  
“He was there,” he says, lowering his head. “My grandfather. You were right. I saw him. I saw him when I tried to kill you, and then after.”  
  
“He broke your arm,” she says.  
  
“And sank my fighter,” Kylo goes on. He’s not bitter anymore. “I couldn’t recognize him, and I should have. He told me who he was without saying his name, and I couldn’t figure it out. I _hated_ him.”   
  
He wants to laugh at that, at how ridiculous it is. Anakin Skywalker, his own grandfather, his idol and the one person he wanted to emulate more than anyone else in the galaxy, and he _hated_ him. The implications of it are hysterical.  
  
“I saw him again in the cave, after you disappeared. He appeared to me and I tried to attack him.” Even more hysterical. He tried to kill _Darth Vader_. Kylo covers his eyes with his left hand, grits his teeth, and _laughs_. It’s a manic sound, caught somewhere near a sob. “He told me everything. He _showed_ me, and I still didn’t believe him. I tried to _kill_ him.”  
  
He keeps laughing, tears coursing down his cheeks. It’s madness, and he feels every ounce of it pulsing in his head. The gravity of it shudders as it presses on him, threatening to snap him in half.   
  
_What breaks first? You, or your lightsaber?_  
  
Both of his hands come up to his face, and Kylo feels like he’s going to be sick. His back heaves, his eyes burn, every broken bone in his body aches with a newfound pain.   
  
“He told me the truth, and I wanted him _dead_ ,” he manages.  
  
Like his father, like the trainees at the Academy, like every corpse he’s ever stood over, cleaved or impaled in some way, like every child he’s orphaned or adult he’s robbed of the lives they treasured. In his mind, he sees the vision of himself, his helmet fused into his head, and he knows that it isn’t a vision of the future, but instead a reflection of the monster he already is. He sees systems being annihilated in greater numbers than just the Hosnian system, each planet exploding and making the galaxy glow red in the light of the fallout. The Force, in its purest nature, hinges on him like he’s a critical component, a fulcrum of unseen balance, and Kylo feels that he’s far more suited to snap under the weight.  
  
He knows she has to see all of this in his head, since he’s not making any attempts to hide it. It pours out of him like blood from an arterial wound. There’s no way to reign it in, or cover it up. He’s done enough of that in his lifetime, and he’s experiencing the result.   
  
And then he sees her, the way she saw him. Dead on a platform like a sacrifice, his head an indistinguishable disaster, her neck cleaved open and burning and her entrails spilling across the dais like a macabre offering.   
  
Her hands are on both sides of his face, and his eyes open in an instant. He tries to reel back, but she’s there, keeping him steady. He can feel her fingers on his neck and jaw, thumbs just under his cheekbones, easing his own hands away. It’s not affectionate, not comforting. It’s a motion that anchors him so quickly and firmly that it leaves him breathless.   
  
“It wasn’t real,” she says, as much to him as to herself. He can feel her mind scrambling, comparing his vision to hers, and their parallels aren’t lost. She makes no move to steel herself, or him for that matter. She’s simply there, pulling him back into his own skin, out of the hellish landscape the cave built for him. They’re eye-to-eye, both of them breathing heavy, and he can feel every callous of her fingers on his skin.   
  
He doesn’t know what to do, or if he should touch her at all. He rests both hands on the ground, fingers tightened to fists, ignoring the ache in his wrist and arm.   
  
“It was,” he returns, voice tight and raw. “For me, it was.”  
  
He can’t tell her everything yet, because that’s years of lies and elaborate schemes piled on his back, twisted and spoken so eloquently that he could never tell the difference. There’s so much involved, with politics and plots, people she’s never met and never _will_ meet, private wars fought on desolate planets, mission after mission, and a history so long and convoluted that it would be hopeless to teach. He lets her feel that much, the enormity of the truth without telling her what the truth _is._   
  
And he lets her feel that sensation in the cave, the hopelessness, the agitated flaming anger at betrayal, the feeling that everything has been hollowed out, down to the very marrow of his bones. He lets her feel that so acutely that he sees it in her expression, as clear as a mirror image.   
  
She doesn’t lower her hands, or change the direction of her gaze. For a long, quiet moment, they simply stare at each other, breath coming in heavy, tear tracks on their faces, and the bizarre sensation of not knowing who is feeling what.   
  
“Will you tell me?” she asks. “Not now, but eventually?”  
  
He nods. There’s no reason he shouldn’t tell her. At that moment, they aren’t enemies, but they’re not equals. Really, they never will be, but there’s something fundamentally different between them, something that very few words could describe, and none of them in a language Kylo knows.   
  
\---  
  
A slow, steady rain comes by nightfall, and it’s a slow and even sound on the roof of the hut. Rey watches some of it come through the cracks, trickles of silver lit by the fire. She’s packed and repacked the small amount of things she deigned to bring with her, and now it’s a matter of waiting out the night and the weather before they leave in the morning. Sleep won’t come easy, not with the way her mind flutters and trembles with each spare thought she has. They only spoke in the morning, but her thoughts have been occupying her throughout the afternoon.  
  
Rey sits on the edge of the sleeping alcove, her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. Her rations are sitting heavy in her stomach, and not since the worst nights on Jakku has she ever been so reluctant to eat again. She’s cried enough, and her eyes burn. They ache when she blinks, and several times, she has to press her palms against them to soothe it.   
  
Seeing into Kylo’s mind, even for such a short moment, is enough to bring her nightmares. It’s not like what she saw during her interrogation, or when she found his tiny pocket of memories that he cherished. What she saw was what he had kept dutifully hidden, and she knows that he never meant for anyone to see them. They carried a different kind of weight, older and more painful, and the newer ones were as fresh and stung as much as a new wound. She can still feel the pressure that he allowed her to sense, something so gargantuan that it nearly takes him up to the brim. She could barely see the contents, only as much as the impression of the sun in her eyes when she closes them, bright dashes of light that flicker on a dark background. She could see the remnants of battles fought long ago, even bore he was born, as well as fights he was in between his Jedi training and his position as Master of the Knights of Ren.   
  
He let her see that, things that he never trusted to anyone else, perhaps even his leader. It doesn’t make her feel special or important, but it’s a measure of trust she still can’t believe he gave her, after she could barely give him hers. Rey doesn’t know what to make of it, and she suspects that she won’t for some time, at least until he starts explaining everything in detail. She also doesn’t know how to view him now, especially after what Anakin told her. Neither good nor evil, Light nor Dark. Clearly, he’s not as immersed in the Dark side as she might have figured.  
  
She thinks of the boundary, the gray stripe that separates the sides, and she wonders if he could walk on it as well.   
  
Her thoughts are interrupted by a rustling sound near the door, and she nearly jumps when she sees him crawl through it. If she was in a different state of mind, far less serious, she would laugh at how ridiculous he looks once he gets all the way inside. He’s too tall for the tiny structure, and immediately, he has to fold himself up to even be slightly comfortable. He’s also soaked, black hair plastered to his face and water dripping from every stray curl.   
  
What strikes her is that he looks sheepish, perhaps apologetic, like he’s infringing on a space that is completely hers, rather than something she offered him only a few days before. When she stays silent, he lowers his head and clears his throat. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight, so, um...” He looks around, at everything but her. “I figured it might be easier if I was dry, for starters.”  
  
“That’s fine,” she replies, watching him from over the tops of her knees. “I have a spare bedroll in the bag if you want to use it.”  
  
He glances at the bag before shaking his head and edging himself into a curved corner of the hut. “I’m alright. Thanks, though.”  
  
They settle into an uneasy quiet, neither quite sure what to say or do. The fact he thanked her for anything is surprising in itself, and she can feel something similar radiating from him, perhaps at her allowing him to stay near her.   
  
The fire starts to die down a little, twigs and sticks burning down to embers and ash, before she finally decides that one of them has to talk eventually, and it might as well be her. “You know, I don’t hate you. At least, not anymore,” she says, resting her chin on her kneecaps. When he looks up at her, clearly surprised, she continues. “I can’t forget what you did, and I’m not going to excuse it, but I don’t hate you.”  
  
It’s clearly more than he expected, and it takes him a moment to gather himself to speak. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to,” he replies, and then lowers his head, maybe in acquiescence.   
  
“And we’re going to talk about this. I’m not letting you back out of it,” she continues, feeling a little more confident.   
  
“I won’t.” He sounds honest, so she takes it as much.  
  
For the first time that day, she feels like she can rest a little easier. Something calms inside of her, and the feeling is beyond relief. Obi-Wan told her that she was taking her first steps, back in that cellar on Takodana. She’s not sure what _this_ is, but it feels like another step in the right direction. “Hey,” she says, and he sits up a little in attention. “You can call me Rey, if you want.” He knows her name, but she’s giving him permission, and it’s more than just a gesture of trust. It’s something she can’t define, but it feels right.  
  
“Rey,” he repeats, and she senses something in him, not quite a thrill, but similar. It’s hard to discern in the dim light of the fire, but she thinks she sees him smile. “You can call me Kylo, or Ren. Doesn’t matter.”  
  
_Not Ben_ , she hears. _Not yet_ is said, soft enough that she almost can’t hear it. She understands, as it’s a name that isn’t meant for her to use.  
  
“Kylo. I’ll call you that,” Rey replies.   
  
They don’t say any more than that, but the silence isn’t awkward. It’s filled with the soft patter of rain, the quiet crackle of the dying fire, and the ambience of Dagobah itself. As the hut darkens and all Rey can see is the barest glow of red in the hearth, her eyes grow heavy and her mind quiets itself. From only a short distance away, she can feel his mind doing the same.  
  
They fall asleep like that, their names on each others’ tongues, and Rey’s dreams are filled not with nightmares or visions, but with the gentle music of the Force.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)   
>  [Writing tumblr!](http://clockworkcourier.tumblr.com)
> 
> Your three-day outlook for the local weather on Dagobah:  
> Monday: Mostly cloudy, chance of showers late in the afternoon, fog in the evening, high of 73 degrees Fahrenheit, humidity one-hundred percent  
> Tuesday: Showers in the morning, clearing up toward the mid-afternoon, with mostly sunny skies by evening. High of 71, humidity one-hundred percent  
> Wednesday: Partly cloudy for most of the day, until late afternoon when an unexpected _horrible hurricane of massive proportions settles over the region and everything goes to hell in a space-handbasket_. High of 65, humidity one-hundred percent.
> 
> ~~STORM'S A-COMIN', VIRGIL. PUT THE SWAMP COWS IN THE BARN.~~


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my good golly gosh, it has legit been over a _month_ since I updated. There are not enough ways to say sorry for the delay, but at least I can try to explain it. Between some seriously soul-crushing writer's block and getting surgery on Friday (which went very well!), as well as a pretty tense two weeks leading up to surgery, this chapter has been a big ol' behemoth to write. Fortunately, people have been so amazingly supportive on multiple fronts, and just as it's hard to find enough ways to say sorry, there's also not enough ways to say thank you with as much as I mean it. You're all rockstars and I'm so, _so_ grateful for all of you.  <3
> 
> Also an apology in that this chapter is comparatively short next to the other ones. However, it _is_ more wordy and pretty hype on the plot advancement front (although not as much as the next chapter will be, WINK WINK). Hopefully, all of that makes up for the length. And any and all OOCness in this chapter is _very_ intentional. Believe me, I planned it out. ;D 
> 
> Okay, ye, I've kept you long enough, between this and a month of waiting. Don't let me keep you, you lovely beings of pure energy and light and trashiness. <333

When morning comes, Rey feels disoriented. The gray light of dawn peeks through the cracks of the hut, illuminating swirling dust motes that never seem to dissipate. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes, rubbing at the corners to get rid of the sandy feeling, and then peers through the darkness. Kylo’s still in his corner, head tilted so that it rests against the wall, his eyes still closed. She holds still for a long moment, watching him, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and feels the weight of sleep still on him. It would be easy to slip into his mind again, to see if he’s dreaming, but she knows he’s been through plenty in the past day, and she doesn’t want to put any extra pressure on a mind in a fragile state. She knows what that feels like.  
  
They’re in no huge hurry to leave the hut yet, save for rations that fall on the steady side of dwindling. S4-M1 hasn’t sent any signals through the commlink, so she assumes that the camp is still safe. There hasn’t been very many opportunities for her to relax on Dagobah, between her training and the tension that has been sitting tight in her muscles since Kylo arrived. Now that both of them have some sort of positive slant to their relationship, she can actually uncoil.  
  
She stays in the alcove, her knees curled upward, her arms wrapped around her midsection, and allows her mind to drift. There’s still plenty to think about, even though she and Kylo have cleared the air, in a relative sense. He still has secrets, in all sizes and in varying ranges of depth, but the fact that he’s agreed to tell her some of them makes her rest easier.   
  
Rey thinks about Dagobah, that somehow it’s become this private little world, enclosed and solitary, where something like this can happen. Here, she and Kylo have worked things out to the best of their ability, and there hasn’t been a single word from the outside telling them what to do and how to do it. They’ve been left to their own devices and abilities, and it’s more frightening to think of what can possibly happen once they leave. He’ll certainly go back to the First Order, no matter what he thinks or believes now. She’ll return to Master Luke and the Resistance. From there, the two of them will go through their own respective gauntlets of others’ opinions and beliefs. She can’t foresee the outcome just yet, let alone gain any sense of hope or foreboding. Everything from this point onward is cloudy.  
  
But the fact still stands; they _have_ to leave at some point. She had told General Organa that she wouldn’t be gone more than maybe three or four months at most, and even then, it seemed excessive. A few weeks have gone by, and her chronometer is ticking closer and closer to the point where she’s going to have to get in the X-wing with S4-M1 and leave. Kylo is going to have to do the same, since she’s in full belief that the First Order isn’t keen on having one of their Knights gone for so long.  
  
It’s strange, though. She doesn’t want to break this peace that they have, as tenuous as it might be. She doesn’t want to return to a galaxy where they’re expected to want to kill each other, where they’re practically predestined to be enemies, foretold by the stars themselves to come to the point where they fight to the death. That seems to be how all the stories end, where Dark fights Light and one of them must die. Here, on this swampy, otherwise _miserable_ planet, they’re settled in that boundary of grey, and for once, the universe seems to think it wise to allow their fates to go quiet. Here, they don’t have to tear into each other, to vanquish their enemy in the name of some symbolic, eternal war. On Dagobah, it is as it is. The destined enemies rest with only two steps between them, each easy and calm in each other’s presence. Rey doesn’t want that to end.  
  
She isn’t sure how much time has passed when he finally wakes up. She just watches him blink awake, and then stretch his legs out in front of him. He seems just as disoriented as she was, turning his head one way, then the other, like he doesn’t remember where he is. Then, he settles his gaze on her before inclining his head. It’s as close to a greeting as she thinks she’s going to get.  
  
“Good morning,” she says, slowly swinging herself into a sitting position. Reaching over, she pulls her pack to her side, rifling through it for one last small ration pack for the two of them.   
  
He gives a noncommittal grunt before pulling himself up into a position that’s a little more attentive. Then, he rubs his good hand over his face and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “How long was I out?” he asks, his voice gravelly and deep from sleep.  
  
“Longer than me,” she says. She peels open one of the packets, containing a tube filled with some sort of ground brown matter. It’s protein-heavy, according to the label, and she needs all she can get. She tosses him an identical one, which he catches deftly. With that, she peels hers open and pours a few granules into her palm before looking back up at him. “We’ll leave whenever you’re ready. There’s no hurry.”  
  
Kylo stays quiet, and he eats his protein packet at the same rate she does. There’s something hanging over his head, dark and maybe somewhat foreboding, but Rey still doesn’t want to intrude into his thoughts. They’ve done enough of that between them, and she may hold the belief that he’ll tell her what’s on his mind in time.   
  
That being said, she isn’t completely ready to fork over the majority of her trust yet. Far from it, if anything. They’ve merely settled the first part of their score, and there’s still so much left to filter through. He has to explain things, and at least acknowledge the rest. While there’s an impossible amount of progress left to make, they have a start, and that’s far more than she could say they had before.   
  
After a long moment, Rey looks up at him. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
He tenses, but she sees his shoulders drop so that he’s a little less defensive. While he doesn’t say outright that she can, she can feel his assent.   
  
“The second day you were at the camp, I asked you why you tried to kill me,” she starts, and she sees the tension seep back into his form. It was a question he had dodged before, and then answered in a way that made her think he either wasn’t telling the truth, or wasn’t giving her the entire thing. “You said that your leader had authorized the eradication of the Jedi, including the apprentices, and that he had taken special interest in me. That wasn’t the whole answer, was it?”  
  
He doesn’t want to reply. It doesn’t take a Force-sensitive person to detect that. There’s nothing to recoil from, but he does it anyway.   
  
“You said he wanted me dead or alive,” she continues, keeping her gaze level on him. “And you said that you had made a mistake. You didn’t hesitate to attack me when you saw me for the first time. _Why?_ ”  
  
It’s not a gentle way to broach the subject, and she gets the distinct sensation of scratching at new scar tissue. But if all else, Kylo Ren doesn’t deserve the gentlest approach. Rey will be civil, because after their talk, she may owe him that much if he gives it in return, but she won’t be gentle. They have a tentative, quiet sort of peace, but they are only limited by Dagobah’s atmosphere. If they were on the _Finalizer_ , or at the Resistance base, it wouldn’t be like this. It’s a dose of their reality, small and diluted, and to a degree, they both need to feel it.  
  
At the same time, no one is here to tell Kylo what to say. The Supreme Leader can’t reach him here.   
  
She can hear is steady intake of breath. He clenches the protein tube in his good hand, and slowly, _very_ slowly, brings his eyes up to look at her. “I personally wanted you dead,” he says. It has all the weight and burden of a closely-hidden confession. There’s the lacing of venom to his words, and even though the sting of it has been lessened, she can still feel it. When she doesn’t say anything, he goes on, working through his syntax like he’s taking great, heaving steps. “The Supreme Leader _did_ authorize your death if need be. I didn’t lie about that. And I didn’t lie about his order to eradicate the Jedi. I’ve been the instrument of his vendetta, but I had my own.”  
  
From what she saw in his mind, she knows that he feels he’s been lied to and betrayed. There’s still the barest whispers of loyalty within him, but those are practically instinctual. He’s unwilling to give them up in completeness, knowing, _believing_ that there’s still a chance out there in their galaxy that he can be proven wrong. He doesn’t want to think that everything he’s built up for himself, what others have built _for_ him, can be destroyed in the matter of an hour. But no answer has come, and the apparition from the cave is still very much haunting him.  
  
He clenches his bad hand at his side, turning his gaze downward. She can see the tense set of his jaw. Nothing is stopping him from speaking. Nothing is trying to twist his words. He speaks for himself, uninhibited, and Rey can sense something like fear in him. For as much as he craves control, he feels like he has none.  
  
_If you die, if I get you alive, it doesn’t matter!  
  
_ He had no intention of leaving that planet with her in his custody. He expected to leave with her as a corpse, little more than a trophy of war. All Rey wants to know is _why_ , and for once, Kylo is willing to tell her.  
  
“You were literally the _symbol_ of my defeat,” he says, his words sliding further away from careful and closer to something raw. “I’ve worked tirelessly, for _years_ , to make myself who I am. You managed to strip so much of it away in such a small amount of time. Every time I tried to think of what I had accomplished, all I could see was you taking it away.”   
  
His words are so bitter, so acidic, Rey almost feels like she has to shrink away from them. Of course, she feels no guilt over it. She couldn’t bring herself to even if she felt inclined. But he sounds so emotional, something on the heavy side of distraught, and even though she feels guiltless, she also can’t help but feel responsible. Kylo Ren may be one of the most powerful men in the galaxy as far as she knows, and now he’s admitting that she’s beaten him. If there is a word for the strange rush of emotion that flows through her, it isn’t in a language that she knows.  
  
He goes on, and his expression reflects something like injury. It’s pained and vulnerable, something that Rey knows he would never show to anyone else if he had the choice. Even on Starkiller, between murdering his father and fighting her, she never saw him look so exposed.   
  
“You made me feel weak,” he says, and the utter sense of pain behind those five words is tangible, sinking deep into her chest like a blaster wound. His thoughts are wild and vivid, and she sees a mess of memories in the matter of seconds. The sight of the empty interrogation chair, the catwalk of the oscillator and the knowledge that she was watching, the brilliant blue glow of his grandfather’s lightsaber in her hands, the arcing burn of pain from each blow she landed, the rift of fire and earth that formed between them, and every defeat she managed to give him on Dagobah. Time and time again, she sees herself thwarting him, this Master of the Knights of Ren, descendant of some of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy’s history, hand chosen by the Supreme Leader of the First Order, surpassed by very few in terms of absolute authority. And all she can see is him continually beaten, repeatedly at the mercy of her wiles and her strength.   
  
You. A scavenger. She can hear his voice as an echo in her head. Disbelief, condescension, and a sense of foreboding that neither of them could fathom at the time.   
  
And she made him feel _weak._  
  
The pieces fall into place easier now. If she thinks on it, she knows that the massacre of the Jedi figured into this as well. The destruction of his family ties, and then his family itself. That little flicker of light she found embedded deep inside of him, the very thing that symbolized so much of this self-proclaimed weakness.   
  
Everything he associated with the Light, he associated with fragility, his own failings. He saw her as an entity of it, the same way he saw the other Jedi trainees, his uncle, his mother and father. He could defeat the others, kill them, exile them, push them away. But this one _thing_ , this scavenger, desert rat, whatever he wanted to call her. He couldn’t extinguish her no matter how hard he tried.   
  
She’s meditated on this before, back when he first arrived on Dagobah. She had wondered what had changed, what transformed him from the boy he was, the boy in that colorful, bright memory, to the man sitting in the literal and proverbial shadows before her. In that same vein, she had questioned whether or not she had the potential to be caught in the same crossroads, that tentative intersection of Light and Dark, to fall to one side or the other. At the time, she didn’t know there were other options. With that in mind, she allows herself a moment to wonder what might have changed if he had realized that as well, all those years ago.  
  
“Now you don’t want to kill me,” she says. It’s a statement, a fact. There is no question. And it’s something of an eerie reflection of something he said to her only months before, during her interrogation.   
  
You still want to kill me.  
  
“No, I don’t.”  
  
Part of her wants to ask him what was the moment that his opinion and his desire changed. And what was the nature of the change? It could have been that he didn’t see her as that entity of Light anymore, or even something as small as having to cooperate with her so he could get a chance to heal. She doesn’t ask, but the question rests heavy between them.   
  
In turn, she feels him shift, like he wants to turn away from her. He doesn’t know either, she thinks. It must be draining and disarming, wanting so badly to kill someone just out of raw anger, and then having it dissipated in a matter of days. To him, it might even seem like a pattern, just another plan destroyed by her. It’s hard to say, as she doesn’t try to read him and he doesn’t try to offer anything up to her. As she promised, she doesn’t make an attempt to go any further. He’s given her the answer she sought, and it’s already far more than he had given her before.  
  
That leaves one question weighing her down more than any other. There will be time for more frivolous ones when they make their way back to the camp. For now, in this quiet, still place, she can try to clear the air just a little more.  
  
“What now? I don’t suppose the First Order would take kindly to you... failing your mission, I suppose.”  
  
The way she says it must make him flinch. He lowers his head and sighs deeply. “No, they won’t,” he concedes. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I’ve been a little preoccupied.”  
  
Understandably, but Rey can’t help the odd sensation of worry work it’s way into her chest. She can’t expect him to just drop everything and pretend the two of them have been just the absolute best of friends the entire time. Things don’t work like that, and there is no doubt within either of them that they have animosity for each other, just in far reduced doses. It wouldn’t be like him to just shed his title and his history for a short stint on a practically deserted planet.  
  
“For now, though?” Rey asks.  
  
Kylo is still for a moment, and then she sees him raise his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “We just go back to the camp, I guess. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to leave.”  
  
The effect of the cave is still there, still haunting both of them like the ghosts of the Jedi. Being so close to it must not help his decision-making much. It’s an unanswered question, but Rey has faith that he’ll answer it when he has more time to think. Or when they both do.  
  
“Yeah, I’m ready, too,” she says.  
  
\---  
  
Rey’s already packed and it’s just a matter of leaving the hut and her slinging the bag over her shoulder. It’s warm enough that neither of them have to wear their jackets, but Kylo keeps his folded over one arm just in case. There’s little ceremony in departing, and Kylo definitely feels no lack of love for the area. The phantoms of the cave still press against the edges of his mind, and he believes that the further away he gets from it, the better he’s going to feel. Everything is still so cloudy within him, and Rey asking him his plans didn’t help matters.  
  
Fortunately, or perhaps _un_ fortunately in a matter of perspective, he has plenty of time to think. Then again, he might not have much time at all. The choices laid out before him are so vast, and there’s so many complexities to work through before he can make anything resembling an absolute decision.   
  
It’s impossible to clear his mind and find somewhere to start, even as they start working their way back through the swamp. He tries to mind his footing and find details in the landscape that might draw his attention, but the Force works ahead of him and the walk just feels effortless. He’s used to Dagobah’s geography by now, like he knows how long of a stride to take and what patches of earth are solid and which ones aren’t. Rey works through it just the same, going up and down slopes and stepping over roots, ducking under low branches, all like she was raised on Dagobah rather than the dunes and wastes of Jakku.   
  
Even though he thought he had a start when the two of them talked after their experiences in the cave, it just ended up feeling like a prequel to _this_. Anakin gave him some talking points and little divots in their shared history that he would have to explore. Kylo was provided a horrible vision of his own future, and even that doesn’t feel like an adequate start. What more can he think of that? How to avoid it?   
  
So he decides to start with Rey. She was the source of so much of his anger before, and telling her so earlier felt like an alleviated burden. The fact that they face each other on something like level ground is as good a start as any, and now that he knows that she fears being absorbed in the Light as much as she does, it gives her another dimension that Kylo wasn’t initially ready to explore. He knew he had underestimated her, time and time again, even when he told Snoke and Hux how important she was. There was no way to know exactly the amount of power she wielded, the amount of potential she had. Even now, he can’t properly gauge that and he has no way of knowing, not until he’s certain that she’s flourished in the Force to the pinnacle of her capabilities.   
  
Rey is something special, and as he thought before, she has more potential to mirror Anakin than he does. Now, however, that thought doesn’t spark anything like jealousy or rage. Pity, maybe, after he had to face that specter for himself. And maybe something like hope, or optimism. Kylo doesn’t believe for a moment that she’s going to be swayed to the Dark side the way he and his grandfather were. There’s so much strength in her, so much willpower. Her signature in the Force is still growing, and even though she’s not an unending beam of Light like he thought she would be, he senses that she’s a world ahead of some of the Jedi before her. She transcends that path, even if she doesn’t know it, even if he can’t properly comprehend it.  
  
If she has the potential of Anakin, that can mean something great.   
  
She won’t become Vader, and neither will he. They’ve both seen for themselves what their respective futures would look like if they followed that path. Both were bathed in blood, with one sacrificing the other, and both ended in nothing but destruction. One was consumed in cold, horrible Light, and the other was submerged in the deep, terrible Dark. They know this cost, and they know what they’ll have to pay if it ever comes to that. Neither of them want it, no matter what they were promised otherwise.  
  
As much as she feared that possibility, Kylo also sensed something in her that he could only describe as ‘enlightenment’. When he saw her again, especially last night, there wasn’t as much fear in her. The trepidation, while still there, was toned down significantly. She must have found something in her meditation.  
  
Kylo’s still burdened with his own fears and doubts, and his meditation only yielded frustration and anguish. He didn’t find peace, or stillness. Even when he tried to meditate as a Jedi rather than the way that Snoke instructed, it gave him nothing. The only thing he gained was the sense that so much of his own future tied into Rey’s. She’s filled multiple roles in his life already, whether he wanted her to or not, and he certainly _didn’t_. She’s been a catalyst, a conqueror, a symbol, an igniting spark. He still doesn’t know what to make of her, but he believes there’s no way he can proceed in his decisions without her.  
  
To a degree, it’s a little infuriating. While he’s never been totally independent, he’s enjoyed the sensation that he is. Being a Master of his Knights was liberating, and that sense of control was something he thrived on. Power was something he craved, as was authority. With her, he has less of all of it. As before, in multiple instances, she’s done well in disarming him. She’s brought him down by leagues, and at this point, he either defers to her or suffers more of the consequences. As it stands, he’s a little tired of having his bones broken.  
  
The thing is, he doesn’t know how it all came to this. It’s hard to determine, and the only thing he can do is pinpoint the moment she was mentioned for the first time, when Mitaka meekly informed him that the Stormtrooper and the droid had escaped with the help of an unknown girl. There was absolutely no way to know that she would cause such a problem, and he wonders if _his_ problem with her started on Takodana, sensing the images of the map in her mind.   
  
How did he arrive at that point, when a scavenger from the great emptiness of Jakku would become one of the most important people in his life?  
  
He hears a hitch in her breath, and Kylo focuses on Rey’s back. She turns her head just enough so he can see a slight grin on her face, her expression almost sheepish. “You’re thinking too loud,” she says.  
  
Kylo blinks, and then realizes that he made no attempt to conceal his thoughts. He knew the wall between them was gone, but he didn’t know that he was projecting. If anything, he was sure he wasn’t.  
  
Unless he wasn’t projecting, and she didn’t have to listen in. Their thoughts may very well just flow from one to the other, from a thin connected line formed between them. It’s not unheard of, especially after they explained their stories about the cave, and allowed each other to see. The intensity of his thoughts would make them clearer, perhaps amplified.   
  
He’s not angry about it. There’s not really anything to be angry about, especially after all Rey has seen of him. “Sorry,” he says after a moment, but he manages a smile despite himself. “Don’t go reciting X-wing schematics on me. My head’s cluttered enough as it is.”  
  
“How about a TIE fighter?” she returns with a laugh. It’s the first he’s heard her laugh since... ever, really. Or at least one that honest-sounding. “We can compare notes, if you want.”  
  
“What, like how they blow up if they get a scratch?”  
  
Rey laughs again, adjusting the weight of the pack on her shoulder. “Yeah, I never really understood that. Why did the Empire use them, or even the First Order, if they blow up so easily and everyone knows when they’re nearby? Seems like it goes against stealth and all.” She pauses, thoughtfully. “Then again, Starkiller wasn’t exactly subtle.”  
  
“Oh, what, you didn’t think an entire massive weapon-planet was stealthy?” he replies. It feels good, actually having some kind of light banter with her. This way, it seems friendly.   
  
“I’m guessing the First Order’s not too big on hiding themselves,” Rey says, slowing her steps so she walks beside him. Her posture is more relaxed, and for some reason, Kylo feels relieved at that. They’re far from that tension they had when they hiked out to the hut.   
  
“They spent years doing that,” he says. He doesn’t feel any pressing need to hide military secrets, or at least ones that weren’t the most classified of classified. “Since the Empire’s destruction, they turned tail and ran off. After a few decades of hiding and building things, I think it’s understandable that they wanted to show off. And they’re descendants of the Empire, after all. They like things a little... flashier.”  
  
Rey’s eyebrows go up and she tilts her head, now more interested and less joking. “Where did they go, anyway? I only got a little intel from the Resistance about them.”  
  
“The Unknown Regions,” he replies. “Most of them were former Empire loyalists and militants. Officers, personnel, all of that. Hux’s father was one of them.”  
  
“The General?”  
  
He nods, a sardonic smile already crossing his face. If only Hux could see him now, divulging a few of the Order’s secrets to the scavenger. It almost makes it all worth it just to imagine the look on the general’s face. “He was a Commandant at the Academy. The general was spoonfed plenty of Imperial propaganda from birth, if you want to think of it like that.”  
  
Rey frowns and turns her head to look at the path. “And you willingly joined up,” she states.  
  
That term is a little vague, considering his history. His smile fades and he turns his gaze away from her as well. “In a sense, yes,” he admits. “I certainly did the Order plenty of favors. You have a great advantage when you take on the child of the Princess of Alderaan who just happens to be a Senator for the Republic. Incidentally, she was one of the only politicians who considered the First Order a threat.”  
  
He knows the moment Rey has a realization. She turns to look at him again, eyes wide. “You gave them military secrets, didn’t you?”  
  
“Among other things. Schematics, maneuvers, information about different politicians,” he affirms. The memory of it stings in a way it never has before. Being as young as he was, still unsure if he had made the right decision. He stood before Snoke as a lanky teenager, the smell of blood still a metallic tang in his nose. In his head, the voice of Vader assured him that he was doing what Vader would have wanted, and pressed him to continue. With each word he gave against the Republic, he moved further and further away from his mother. It seemed like such an enormous thing then, and then it wasn’t. Now, with his mind still reeling from Anakin’s ghost, it’s enormous again.  
  
That thought he does project. He sees Rey stiffen beside him before she nods. “Snoke made you tell him, but you didn’t know it was him. Just like what Anakin said.”  
  
“And that went on for years. One benefit the Order had was that the Republic never took them seriously, so they made only a few attempts to try to strengthen their security. They thought that since it was so soon after Endor, the galaxy would be at peace, at least for a decade or two. The Order was able to get much more information out of them, partially because of me.”  
  
He feels guilt at that, and it isn’t unfamiliar. For all those years, he could only imagine how much his family suffered because of what he did. All of what he gave the First Order could very well end up with a repeat of Alderaan, with his mother facing that level of destruction. After everything had been said and done, he still cared about her the most.   
  
It’s just that this guilt is fresh and has a patina of newness to it. He was so convinced for so long that somehow he could filter it out of his system. With every life he took, with every plea he made to his grandfather, with every visit to a Sith temple or a beacon of the Dark side, with every moment of training with his Knights. He was so _sure_ that the tiny pinprick of Light in him would fade away if he just _tried_. It never did, regardless of his efforts, and now with the maelstrom of _decision-choice-consequence_ in his head, the guilt sears him like the lightsaber wound that crosses his face.   
  
He flinches when he feels Rey’s hand on his arm again, but it also does the job of pulling him back into the moment, trodding across the spongy earth of Dagobah with her at his side. She must have felt it, with the intensity that he had noted before probably a distinct sensation to her.   
  
“It’s in the past,” she says, her fingers a slight pressure against his cast. “And it still _can_ be.”  
  
“You make it sound easy,” he replies, and his voice sounds weak to his own ears.  
  
“It’s not going to be. It wasn’t easy for Anakin, either, but he made the right choice in the end, didn’t he?”  
  
Kylo doesn’t know. Anakin lost his family, either through his own actions or through things he couldn’t control. He followed a path that Kylo tried so desperately to recreate, and only a decision made at the very last second managed to change anything. Although, he isn’t sure it was the correct thing to do in the end. His ghost still seemed to bear some marks of suffering, reflecting his past nature very clearly.   
  
So he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps his arm within her reach, finding that he doesn’t want to pull it away. It’s strange, the parallel of her touching his broken arm, when it was through her doing and Anakin’s that anything was broken at all. He trusts her enough to let her touch it.   
  
When the silence stretches between them, longer and longer with each step, she sighs. “I think you’ll make the right decision,” she says, and he’s surprised by the air of finality she has.  
  
A corner of his mouth quirks, and the urge to make some sarcastic comment is just barely contained. “After everything I did to you and your friends, you’re willing to assume the best of me. That’s risky.”  
  
“No, I’m not assuming the best of you,” she replies. There’s no false confidence there. “I know what you did, and I’m not just going to stand idly by and pretend that it didn’t happen at all. I just know that you have the potential to make the right choice, and I’d _like_ to think you’re not stupid enough to do what you did before.”  
  
“That’s... comforting?”  
  
He’s disarmed once more by her grin. Her hand doesn’t move away from his. “If you did, you’d have a lot of people to answer to, and not all of them are alive.”   
  
\---  
  
The rest of their hike passes uneventfully. Retracing their steps and returning seems to take less time than it did to get out to the hut in the first place. Landmarks start looking familiar, and Rey swears she’s seen a few of the trees before, even when Kylo just rolls his eyes.   
  
Dagobah sinks into blue-black night by the time she sees a familiar silhouette in the distance, forming her meditational outcropping. In the murky silence, she hears the soft sloshing of the water in the pond, and she breaks into a grin. “Told you,” she says, gently shoving Kylo in the arm.   
  
“You didn’t tell me anything,” he retorts, but it’s definitely a relief to see.   
  
“You were thinking it.”  
  
“Thinking what?”  
  
She lowers her voice as deep as it can go to mimic him. “‘Oh, Rey doesn’t know where she’s going. She’s just going to get us lost. No, we _haven’t_ seen that tree before.’”  
  
He raises an eyebrow. “Flattering,” he deadpans.  
  
They keep walking as the nighttime fog sets in, and Rey finally allows herself to breathe a relieved sigh at the sight of the gnarltree and the X-wing, both looking no worse for the wear. Then she sees S4-M1’s chassis lights, and quickens her steps. The astromech sees her and lets out a cheery series of beeps and squeals, cheerfully announcing to all the creatures nearby that she’s back and not maimed or otherwise destroyed.   
  
Rey immediately crouches down in front of S4-M1 and pats the top of their dome. “Hey, did we miss anything while we were away?”  
  
S4-M1 immediately regales her with a list of creatures they’ve seen and a very distinct report on the changing weather patterns, including how there is evidence of a rather large storm system coming in from the west, and then goes on to say that they may have found a previously unknown algae species that isn’t recorded in any of their databases. Rey just laughs and pats them.   
  
“Thanks, S4-M1. Did you do any diagnostics on the X-wing?”  
  
The droid beeps the affirmative. It’s in good condition, and ready for flight at any time.  
  
While she listens to S4-M1 explain the condition of the X-wing in fine detail, she laughs and rests her pack on one of the crates, pulling out another nutrition bar and tossing it to Kylo. He catches it and eyes her peculiarly, his expression virtually unreadable. In return, she just shrugs and pulls out one of her own. “Dinner and sleep sound good. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little exhausted.”  
  
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just holding the bar in his hand while putting the flight jacket under the tarp. Then, he looks at the ship with a frown. “Are you planning on leaving soon?”  
  
“No, but I mean, eventually I’m going to have to,” she says, hoisting herself onto a crate and peeling the packaging of her bar open. “Speaking of, what about your ship?”  
  
She sees a line form at the edge of his nose, something a little like disgust. “Still submerged in a few feet of swamp water,” he replies. “I’m going to have to get it out somehow.”  
  
“I hope so, otherwise you might be the first person to permanently inhabit Dagobah since Yoda,” she says, kicking her feet against the crate. She takes a bite of the bar, ignoring how it practically crumbles to dust in her mouth.  
  
He doesn’t smile, or really show much response at all. He just keeps his eyes on the X-wing. Then, he looks down at the ground and sighs. “I think I’m just going to go to sleep. I’ve got a lot to work through and it’d be easier if I was more awake.”  
  
Rey’s not following his train of thought, at he’s not projecting, or really showing her much of anything across the connection they have. They’ve gone from something like playful banter to this, but she gives him the benefit of the doubt in assuming that he’s just as exhausted as she said she was. She swallows the dry bit of nutritive _something_ and nods. “Yeah, that’s fine,” she says. “You can take a bedroll out of the bag so you don’t just have to sleep on the crate and nothing else.”  
  
He mumbles something that sounds like ‘thanks’ and tucks the nutrition bar into his pocket, walking over to the bag and yanking out said bedroll. It smells musty and moldy, but she knows it’s better than the alternative, or anything he’s been sleeping on for the past few days.   
  
Before he walks away, she clears her throat, causing him to turn and look at her expectantly.  
  
“Listen, I know that everything’s kind of... weird right now,” she starts, kicking the crate with her heels again. “And we’re not just going to be able to pretend like everything’s fine and wonderful and there’s nothing wrong between us. It’s easier than trying to kill each other, definitely.”  
  
He doesn’t nod or say anything, but she feels him urge her on.  
  
“So, do you want to talk tomorrow?” she asks. “I mean, about something other than the cave or anything like that. It doesn’t even have to be about the First Order or the war. Just, talking.”  
  
Kylo keeps his gaze level on her, and then slowly, he nods while turning away. “Yeah, we could do that.”  
  
It’s a small victory, and it feels better than what ever charade they might have been attempting before. They’re not childhood friends, and as much as they might have joked or prodded, they’re barely even friends as it is. They’re _trying_ , though, and it’s something. It’s an enormity in itself in this galaxy that seems so bent on tearing itself apart. She won’t take it for granted, and she hopes he won’t either.  
  
“Alright,” she says, and then raises a hand in a wave. “Sleep well, then.”  
  
More silence, and then his expression softens a little as he starts walking back towards the tarp. “You, too,” he says.  
  
\---  
  
The night is heavy and dark, the blue-gray fading into something more solid. It’s an encroaching black, like a nightmare, and it’s suffocating in a way Kylo hasn’t felt for a long time. He curls in on himself, trying to put his mind somewhere else. He tries to imagine Rey sleeping peacefully only a short distance away, or the constant lights of S4-M1 being an ever-present sentinel in the camp. Nothing works, and he’s only left feeling like he’s drowning.  
  
There’s a hiss in his mind, present ever since they returned to the camp. At first, it sounded like a leak of some kind, or something pneumatic. As the night wore on, it came complete with a headache, manifesting as a dull pulse that slowly escalated into a piercing, splitting pain. He braces himself against it now, screwing his eyes shut, trying to fight it. The hiss only gets louder, until he hears words mixed in with the static sound.  
  
A cold sensation grips him, and he feels it leach into his bones. It’s a sensation he hasn’t felt in years, the sound and the cold and the darkness, the feeling as if someone was trying to break into his head. The first time he felt it, he was ten years old.  
  
And he felt it again when Vader’s voice told him to kill the Jedi trainees.  
  
Something out there in the darkness of the universe has finally reached him, trying to snake into his mind. And this time, all he can do is fight it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)   
>  [Writing Tumblr](http://clockworkcourier.tumblr.com)
> 
> There's a darkened stage, with one spotlight shining upon a lone barstool in the middle. Then, after a murmur from the crowd, Poe Dameron comes in from stage left, an acoustic guitar in his hands. He gets up on the barstool to the scattered applause and one distinct hoot of appreciation that sounds an awful lot like Finn.
> 
> Poe Dameron lowers his head, his expression soulful and mellow, and then gives the guitar a gentle strum, teasing out a pleasing chord.
> 
> "Here's the story of the worst camping trip in the entire universe," he says, and then starts up a frenzy of beautiful notes. The audience waits in anticipation, ready for his beautiful voice to serenade them. 
> 
> Instead, after a few seconds of strumming, Poe Dameron opens his mouth and lets out a long, soulful(?) shriek. He takes in a deep breath, and keeps keening like a dying dragonsnake. After about two minutes of this display, he strums his last chord, stands up, bows, and exits.
> 
> No one makes a sound, except for Finn who stands up, tears fringing his eyes, clapping excitedly. "That's my boy!" he says.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [strums guitar] ♫♪Preteeeeend that this didn't take nearly two moooonths! Preteeeeeend that I've been updating regularlyyy~! This isn't a Jedi mind trick, I sweaaaar! This is actually the chapter you're looking fooooooor~!♪♫ [strums guitar again, bows head, the crowds go wild]
> 
> And since we're so good at pretending this didn't take forever, and I totally, absolutely posted chapter twelve like, a week ago, we're just going to go ahead and read the chapter because we're all awesome. And it's going to be so nice and wonderful and not heartbreaking and DJ totally isn't making a hobby out of beating Kylo Ren up. Yesss. 
> 
> Finally, don't forget to sign up for the new Italics Users Anonymous support group that meets in the trash compactor on Friday nights. There is help for you and others like you. You're not alone.
> 
> [PPITG IS NOW IN RUSSIAN!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4212613) Thanks to the lovely astronautka. <3  
> [AND IN CHINESE!! WOAH!](http://www.lofter.com/blog/andsostarsfall?act=dashboardclick_20130514_04) Thanks to justaflyingfish. <33333

Rey wakes up early, when the dawn of Dagobah settles easy and calm over the camp. Aside from a few moments set aside at Yoda’s hut, she hasn’t gotten a chance to actually meditate the way she had when she first came to the planet, and after all that’s happened, she’s in dire need of it. She falls into the familiar routine of dressing herself and getting ready to take the hike out to the outcropping, and that familiarity feels good. She’s eager to revisit Anakin’s suggestion and begin her careful steps out onto the boundary in the Force.  
  
Her eyes stray to Kylo, still curled up under the tarp in a way that’s almost comical. He’s folded himself up, and his position doesn’t demean his size so much as it just makes it look like an awkward, uncomfortable pose. For a moment, she considers waking him and asking if he’d like to accompany her, but she senses that he’s deep in sleep, so she’ll spare him that, at least.  
  
Instead, she tugs her boots on and pulls her hair back into a loose bun, her lightsaber a comfortable weight against her hip once she clips it in place. She begins her trek, pleased at the feeling of cool air against her skin. S4-M1 did say that there was a storm system on the way, but Rey enjoys that barometric drop while it’s still mild and the air is cool.  
  
While she walks, her mind wanders. She thinks about Master Luke’s teachings, and how she’ll work those into her new approach to the Force. Really, there’s not much she has to change. Luke had told her about his own temptations to the Dark side, and that he sought to acknowledge it rather than ignore it completely. What saved him was the understanding of what it did to his father, and what it could mean for his friends and his family. She had seen only a brief vision from him, of a younger Leia and Han, but it was enough to get the point across.  
  
When he had spoken of Dagobah, he approached it in a surprisingly reverent way while also complaining about all of its drawbacks. The Force was strong there, he had said, and Rey is very much so inclined to agree, although part of her wonders why that is. He had gained some of the wisdom of the Jedi masters while learning to draw on his own strengths and work with his weaknesses. He also had gained visions of the future, or something like it. Rey wonders if his visions were similar to the ones she and Kylo had seen in the cave, of a galaxy destroyed by Light and Dark. Something tells her that it was different, and that what the two of them saw was far more broad, something borne of fear and foreboding rather than something that she could call absolute.  
  
What Luke saw was the fates of people closer to him, rather than the entire galaxy.  
  
She’s yet to experience anything like that outside of the cave. The only other visions that she might even consider similar are that of the ghosts, but those are real. They speak to her, work with her the way Yoda and Obi-Wan worked with Luke in the past. While both the visions and the ghosts come from the Force, they are two different extensions of it. Idly, as Rey walks, she wonders if she could draw visions from the Force on command, the same way she asked it to guide her and conceal her. For that matter, there’s so much more she wants to practice and attempt, to ask of the ghosts as her teachers.  
  
Rey reaches the outcropping and sits in her spot, calm and relief flooding her and allowing her to ease into a pre-meditative state. The water sloshes gently against the shore, the wind creaks and whistles through the trees, and the pervasive scent of earth and moss overpowers anything else. It’s that meeting of the elements that she appreciates, that allows her to sink into her meditation far easier than when she had started.  
  
When she falls into it, she notices something different. The harmony of the Force is the same, perhaps a little louder and clearer, and the billions of lifeforms still surround her on all sides, forming that intricate and complex web that sings of the cyclical nature of life and death. All that remains as it is, but there’s something _else_ , as quiet and gentle as a whisper against her mind. There’s nothing cruel or dangerous in it, so much as it just _is_ , but Rey feels like it’s intruding somehow. She doesn’t know if she should venture closer to it or press against it and try to force it out. All she knows is that it doesn’t fit with the harmonies, like one instrument just a bit out of tune, or one object out of place. It goes from simply being there to grating on her, and eventually, it’s enough to make her grit her teeth and try with desperation to keep her hold on the Force. She doesn’t sense any particular power from it, as it doesn’t feel so much like a living thing. It’s simply strange, foreign in the Force as if it isn’t a part of it at all.  
  
Eventually, she opens her eyes, and Dagobah comes back to her harder than it ever has, enough to make her reel from it. The greens are too saturated and the grays are too diluted. She feels almost dizzy. The strange presence fades a little, but it remains in place, insistent yet unmoving.  
  
Rey groans in irritation and presses the heels of her palms against her eyes until phosphenes bloom in her vision.  
  
She tries to identify it as she sits there, tries to hone in on it as if it’s in one fixed location. Instantly, she finds that it isn’t. It’s no presence in the Force the way a Jedi might be, and if anything, it just makes her think of dark matter, of the empty space between stars, something that no one thinks of but it remains all the same. Now she’s aware of it, and all that she knows is that she wants it gone.  
  
She’s so focused on it that she almost misses a shift in the Force, and it surprises her when she does catch onto it.  
  
“ _Rey?_ ” Obi-Wan’s voice is clear, and it fills her with a great sense of relief.  
  
Rey moves her hands away from her eyes and turns her head to see Obi-Wan sitting beside her. He still looks young, the way he looked to her when she saw him in the cave. The memory makes her feel strange, like a hollow still remains in her chest and it’s exposed by his appearance.  
  
There’s no doubt that he senses this, as a crease forms between his eyebrows and he frowns. “ _You’re troubled,_ ” he says, more fact than question.  
  
She is, but there’s only so much she can do to explain it. There’s still some internal conflict within her after the events in the cave, and now there’s that... _presence_. She still needs answers, but her problem is that she doesn’t know how to ask the questions. How does she say that she still doesn’t know how to walk the boundary? That she’s not sure if that’s the right path even though her visions told her otherwise? No one gave her explicit directions on what to do, and there’s no tradition for her path the way that there is for the Jedi or the Sith. If she felt lost following the path of the Jedi before, then there are no words she can string together to explain how she feels now.  
  
In the end, she simply rests her chin on her hand and sighs, looking out over the water. “How did you know that you were doing the right thing?” she asks. It sounds awkward to her own ears, but there’s no other way to ask. She’s aware that Obi-Wan went through any number of hardships in his life, and she was given a glimpse of his fights with Anakin, both as young men and old. It’s not something she’s meditated on, even though now she thinks that it might give her more answers, as there’s something familiar and age-old that spreads between Anakin and Obi-Wan, to herself and Kylo.  
  
Beside her, Obi-Wan shifts minutely. His gaze is serene, watching Dagobah’s too-still landscape. “ _I didn’t. Not really,_ ” he says. “ _Anakin thought he was doing the right thing as well, so I suppose that sort of thing is subjective. I just had to trust that I was making a good decision. Even now, I’m not sure if every decision was good. I’m more than certain that I made mistakes._ ”  
  
That is hard to imagine. Perhaps it’s Rey’s own fault, imagining Obi-Wan Kenobi to be some kind of infallible being, his light in the Force too flawless in her mind. She has to remind herself that he was a man, born and grown and dying like many before and after him. He led his own life, he suffered, he learned, and while he transcended death as other Jedi had, so much of it came at a price. From what she knows, he lost a person who was closer than a friend, closer than a brother, bonded in a way that blood fell short of. And then he lost others, one by one. Just because she sees his ghost and this ghost serves as one of her mentors doesn’t mean that there is not some part of him that may still be tarnished.  
  
Then maybe, _just_ maybe, the gray path that Anakin showed her isn’t such a far shot after all. Obi-Wan may very well have treaded it in his own time.  
  
Again, he seems to sense something in her, as he gains a smile that Rey could only describe as both wise and tired. “ _You’re still conflicted about your own path, aren’t you?_ ”  
  
“Is it that obvious?” she returns, but she can’t help but smile back. She feels exhausted, like there’s a weight cast across her shoulders. It feels like that sort of strain in her muscles from hauling parts across the expanses of Jakku, a burden that just so happens to be necessary to carry.  
  
“ _It’s not unfamiliar,_ ” he replies. “ _I would say that all Jedi have felt it at some point or another, be it in training or after. Knights and padawan alike, I think. Even the masters._ ”  
  
“I’m sure Master Yoda would say something about how some of those fell to the Dark side,” she says, and it’s hard to keep the wry tone out of her voice.  
  
He shrugs, but it’s a good-natured gesture. “ _You’ve heard it before, but Master Yoda is from a different time, and has a different understanding of the Force. I believe Anakin explained some of this to you._ ”  
  
She’s not surprised that he knows, although she does wonder if the ghosts of the Jedi are in each other's’ confidence somehow, like they meet together when they’re not haunting her. Or, if anything, Obi-Wan and Anakin certainly do. “And you’re not concerned about me going to the Dark side?” she asks. It comes across like a jest, but there’s deeper meaning to it. The conflict he spoke of is there as she says it. He knows that her visions are fresh, and that she isn’t going to forget them for a long time to come.  
  
“ _No, honestly,_ ” he says. “ _After what you saw in the cave, I know that you must still be confused. Our teachings have only spoken of goodness in the Light and evil in the Dark. And I know that I told you to walk in the Light, so I’m sure it’s concerning to connect that and imagine the consequences._ ”  
  
He’s hit it exactly. No part of her wanted to abandon the Jedi completely. Their presence was comforting and informative, a relief after the maelstrom that her life became after leaving Jakku. They gave her some solidity, an anchor when she had nothing to tie her down. There was something honestly disturbing about the idea that the very path they recommended would end in bloodshed if she pursued it.  
  
It’s going to be a journey, she knows. It already is. And there’s an inkling of thought in the back of her mind that suggests that this journey will make their hike to the cave look simplistic and easy compared to what it’s going to be. Yet where there should be dread, she only feels a strange, light sensation. It’s not unlike the feeling of the Force forging a path for her, making her steps easy and mindless, taking her to her destination while managing her fears.  
  
“ _You should speak to my master, perhaps,_ ” Obi-Wan says, and there’s a knowing expression on his face. “ _And there are others, I’m sure, that could guide you._ ”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
His grin is wry, but amiable all the same. “ _I can remain one of your mentors, of course. But the philosophy of your path isn’t easily defined. I’ve tried meditating on it before, and perhaps I followed it more than I thought I did when I was in exile, but its concepts and its lessons are still unfamiliar to me. I can train you, but I can’t teach you, if that makes sense._ ”  
  
It does, and it also gives her relief where she didn’t think she needed it. The Jedi aren’t refusing to train her on the grounds of her new path.  
  
“Then, can you train me now?”  
  
It’s hard to tell, with the ghostly blue aura, but she thinks she sees a glimmer in his eyes. “ _That I can do._ ”  
  
He speaks, she listens, and for just a moment, that strange presence in the Force fades.  
  
\---  
  
For a moment, Kylo can almost pretend that what took place the night before was only a dream. When he wakes up, Dagobah is not saturated in blood, and a quick sweep through the area tells him that even though Rey isn’t at the camp, she’s not far away. Nothing is out of place on this planet, although he can’t say the same for the galaxy beyond it. Something has clearly changed, but Kylo has no way of knowing what it is. The whispers in his head have quieted, but they aren’t silenced. They’re saying _something_ to him, but he just doesn’t know _what._  
  
He gets up, swinging his legs over the edge of the crate, still feeling sore but knowing that he’s healing. His ribs don’t protest half as much as they did before, and it might not be an enormous leap to estimate that he could take off the splint in the next few days. But his aches and his wounds aren’t in the foremost section of his thoughts. They simply serve as a dark, aching backdrop to the feelings that still gnaw at him, that seem to wound him worse than his actual maladies.  
  
It’s been easy to pretend that Dagobah is an untouchable world, like a singular island in the middle of a vast sea. He’s felt some sort of false sense of security, a feeling he knows from training that he should never allow himself. After years of learning through lessons and pain alike, it’s a legitimate wonder that he’s felt that way at all. Words still burn bright and horrid like a brand, telling him that _nowhere_ is safe in the galaxy, no corner of the vast reaches of space can be far enough away that he would avoid harm. Once he swore his loyalty, once he took any oath and breathed out so much as a _sentence_ declaring his fealty, an invisible latch was shut and locked on his very being. There was a tether, and there would never come a day or a situation that would bring him far enough for that tether to break.  
  
That thought leaves him feeling nauseous and empty in turns, his stomach churning on its own acid and nothing else.  
  
The isolation of Dagobah doesn’t matter. The presence of so many Jedi of great power hasn’t changed anything either. They haven’t formed a barrier between Kylo and the rest of the galaxy. The swamp and the clouds haven’t jammed any signals. He’s made a fool’s mistake, and the whispers that grew like a parasite on the edges of his mind are proof enough.  
  
‘ _No matter how far you run, you will always come back here,_ ’ he remembers. ‘ _You cannot turn on a coward’s heel and go back. You cannot decide that this choice was not for you after you have completed your oath. This, you understand, I’m sure._ ’  
  
He understands. There has never been a time since those words were said that he _didn’t_ understand. He’s seen the power of the First Order demonstrated in a myriad of ways, through firepower and manpower and just _power_ alone. The Hosnian System’s destruction was just the flex of one muscle, and one that would have been the equivalent of showing something to the public’s eye. A weapon, mechanized, was the first part of something greater and deeper. The galaxy hasn’t yet seen the ancient, broader, more monstrous vision that Snoke entrusted him with.  
  
His nausea gives way to the frigid crawl of fear. It spreads through him, curling like frost, and it leaves him feeling far colder and emptier than he felt before.  
  
But _what_ exactly is he so afraid of? It’s difficult to pinpoint it, that particular topic that leaves him so apprehensive and... No, he won’t shy away from his own thoughts. He’s _terrified._ Snoke once promised him that death would be the least painful option of any particular sin he might commit. Treason is one, desertion another. His minor infractions from his training were punished in any number of painful ways, and he’s still sure he can feel a ghostly current of electricity run through him in memory. Kylo Ren has never been afraid to die, not since he took on the mantle of his position and swore his own name away.  
  
But there are far worse things than death.  
  
The truth of it all is that he can’t go back to the First Order, to Snoke, to his Knights for that matter, and resume things as he had done them before. Even if he was to go back and continue being the Master of his Knights, to return to his duties and his post, to fight and destroy and kill the way he had done before, his mind has still been changed. Snoke can erase all of that, he’s sure. The Supreme Leader could very well destroy every last vestige of thought and memory that the events on Dagobah have instilled. Anakin’s ghost could become the barest tendril of a thought, and his dealings with Rey could vanish like mist.  
  
Yet that would require him to go willingly to Snoke and ask for that to happen, or for Snoke to read into his mind and discover the truth for himself, and make that decision on Kylo’s behalf. Right now, he doesn’t want either thing to happen. Now that he knows the truth through Anakin and the visions in the cave, there is absolutely _no_ way he can return to the First Order and submit himself to that again. He values control, especially over himself, and to think that Snoke only gave him the illusion of self control is enough to convince him that he can’t return. On the lightest ends of it, he would have to return with his mission failed once more, and the punishment of that infraction alone would be great.  
  
Even if he _wanted_ go back, even if he _wanted_ to return with a successful mission, he can’t do it. Not now, not with things between himself and Rey changed so monumentally. His own voice echoes in his head, burning with rage that seems like a shadow of something else, and it screams to him that he doesn’t care if she’s alive or dead. No, now he _cares_ , and all of his lessons from Snoke charge through him like an exposed wire, trying to beat it into him that caring is weakness and to feel compassion is to admit failure. It all falls short, and after all of it, he just _can’t_ do that to Rey.  
  
He doesn’t know what kind of future they face, and he thinks that maybe that’s what he’s so afraid of. He isn’t afraid of death, and he’s experienced so much pain in his life that it’s hard to draw from his wells of emotion to be afraid of that as well. All in all, he thinks he might be afraid of uncertainty. He doesn’t know if he’ll be tortured, killed, brainwashed, or what ever Snoke might have in mind for him. And he doesn’t know what Snoke will do to Rey, if he’ll chase her back and forth across the galaxy, if he’ll manage to capture her using what Kylo knows, if he’ll mount such a movement against her that there won’t be any hope for her. There’s thousands of options, and all of them shake Kylo to his core. It’s the strangest sensation, unfamiliar and terrible in turns. He wants to rid himself of it, but like his lessons and his training, it doesn’t go away.  
  
Both he and Rey have to make decisions. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking, or if she’s planned much beyond Dagobah. There’s still so much she doesn’t know or understand, no matter how we’ll she’s picked up on what little she’s been given. Of course, she’ll go back to the Resistance. That was the plan all along on her side, the same way he was certain he would return to the First Order. But what then? She could return to Luke, or she could join up in some offensive strategy where she would go against the First Order directly. The Resistance undeniably values her, as a Force-sensitive being with Jedi training under Luke Skywalker himself, as well as being an amazing pilot and an experienced fighter. Rey is a priceless asset to them, but it’s difficult to know what plans they have for her, or what plans she has for herself.  
  
They still have to talk. That’s been most of what they’ve done on Dagobah other than fighting. He has questions, and so does she. He has things to tell her, things to _teach_ her, if either of them plan on getting off the planet and surviving the uncertainty that clouds their futures like gaseous nebulas clouding the blackness of space.  
  
And he has to make a decision. He can’t go back to the First Order, he can’t escape into space without being found, and he certainly can’t go to the Resistance without being branded as a war criminal and a murderer. For that matter, even if he could find safety within the Resistance, as much as he’s changed within the past few days, he knows he still doesn’t believe in everything they believe in. He still believes in what the First Order had to offer, a more tight-ship government that fought against the chaos and corruption of the Republic. His understand of politics and his firsthand view of the Republic’s inner workings taught him everything he needed to know, and set him on a very bitter course. What the Resistance has come to represent still goes against his beliefs.  
  
If he’s honest with himself, and he tries his best to be, the only real reason he would go to them is Rey. There’s a large part of him that has developed that wants to be on her side. It’s people like her that win wars, that become icons and, rather cynically, martyrs. He knows how much power she has, and how, like his grandfather, the fate of the galaxy can easily rest across her shoulders. If he could choose a side that was just _her_ , he would do it. But nothing is that easy now, and he can’t go to the Resistance just for her.  
  
He’s at the most extraordinary impasse, and he can’t make a decision. It burns him in a way that’s almost deeper and more visceral than the gash across his face. It seeds something inside of him that melts away the frost of his fear, and ignites a massive thermal reaction. He’s _angry_ , and at the very least, rage and spite and bitterness is a comforting thing sheerly for its familiarity. Kylo is angry at himself, angry at the First Order and Snoke and General Hux and _everything_ that has brought him to this moment, this awful crossroads of indecisiveness.  
  
If he goes one way, if he goes another, it’s just going to end in something terrible. What he wants, or at least what he _thinks_ he wants is control. He wants to have control over himself, control over his situation, a choice in what his future holds that isn’t in the hands of someone who just wants to use him for their own ends. Part of him envies Rey, for her power and that level of freedom that she can afford. If she believes in fate or if she doesn’t, he can still see that she’s holding many of her own strings, and that makes him angry as well.  
  
He sits there, in a swamp so quiet that it’s jarring in the clash it has with his own mind, and he _seethes_. His breaths come in heavier, harder, and his ribs protest it. Kylo doesn’t care, and he pushes himself off the crate, eager to get away from... _something._ There’s nothing to escape from here, save for his own thoughts and the whispers that start to escalate from the gentle pneumatic hiss in the back of his mind to something greater, _louder_. He walks fast, as if he can just physically get away from it. Of course, he can’t. Each step just seems to make it gain volume, voices mashing together to form some incomprehensible, headache-inducing _mess_ , and the only thing Kylo can think to do is to meditate, to try to weed them out mentally until he’s left in peace.  
  
_\--you traitor you monster you foolish boy how dare you after all we’ve done for you what do you think they can do for you deserter defector traitortraitorTRAITOR--_  
  
It’s deafening, and there’s nothing he can do to block them out. They beat like his own pulse in his head, hiss and rush like hearing the flow of his own blood. When he manages to get to a clearing, he sits on the edge of a rock and pinches the bridge of his nose hard, like that tiny fraction of pain is enough to draw the voices out. It does nothing, and even when he tries to edge his way into the Force, to find something comforting or soothing in the space around him, the voices seem to scrub that all away. There’s nothing for him to grab onto, nothing that seems like it can help him.  
  
Or maybe, there is.  
  
He shuts his eyes hard, lowers his hands so they cover his knees, and tries to reach out. He calls out, as loud as he can past the mounting screaming and howling in his head.  
  
Grandfather.  
  
Anakin.  
  
\---  
  
Rey’s eyes shoot open, and her body shakes like she’s been electrocuted. Her heart rams hard in her chest, and she tries to draw breaths that seem too short. It’s a disturbance in the Force, but nothing like the scale of the Republic’s destruction. This one is closer, more tangible, not just the sensation of billions of lights blinking out, but just one perilously close to destruction.  
  
She knows Obi-Wan can feel it to, the way he turns away from her and looks out over the swamp, brow furrowed, lips set in an tight line.  
  
“What _was_ that?” she asks, still trying to catch her breath.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t have to. The realization comes on its own.  
  
“It’s Kylo, isn’t it?” The thought alone sends another shock through her. She didn’t think he was in danger, especially since he seemed perfectly fine when she left him in the camp. But then there was the presence, the insistent buzzing in her mind, the irritation just at the edge of her understanding of the Force. The correlation can’t be missed, and Rey is on her feet in seconds, already unclipping her lightsaber. “I have to go,” is all she manages, already making her way off the outcropping.  
  
“ _Rey, wait._ ” It’s an order, but not a very enforced one. All the same, Rey stops and looks at him, waiting. Even for a ghost, he looks conflicted. “ _Try to search through the Force. Summon a vision, the way Luke did. I do not want you to go into this blind._ ”  
  
“How?” she asks.  
  
“ _The way I taught you before. Ask the Force to work with you, and it will answer you._ ”  
  
It’s not as easy as it was before, as she was only frightened the first time. Now she’s concerned, her worries clouding her vision, making it feel as though she’s walking through knee-deep mud. She knows there’s something out there, something that threatens them, even in the protection of the Jedi. As she tries to feel for it, it grows more sinister. It wasn’t dangerous before, when it was simply just a _thing_ , but she can feel it grow.  
  
“ _Block it out, Rey,_ ” Obi-Wan advises. “ _You have the strength to do so. It does not have to win against you._ ”  
  
She tries, and she tries _hard_. It’s an insistent, pervasive thing, and its darkness seeks to spread.  
  
“What is it?” she asks, her brow pinching as she tries to focus.  
  
“ _Something very old,_ ” the ghost replies. He sounds troubled, which strikes her as strange. “ _It belongs to no one in particular, but it returns in many forms. It is what defined the Sith in their time._ ”  
  
“The Dark side?”  
  
“ _In a sense. That’s a simple definition._ ”  
  
The Dark side she knows, the one that _isn’t_ the thing that drew Kylo Ren in, is nothing like this thing. What she knows is the calm, gentle darkness that feels like a restful sleep. That Dark side is like Dagobah’s night. This is something so much worse, like the death to every life that rests in the other side.  
  
There is a duality, more than just Light and Dark. The Dark side wears more than one face, as the Light does, and she’s seeing the other one. This evil thing, bathed in its own cruelty and tempting in its offer of raw power. The fact that it comes here, to the one planet where the Force is so strong and pure, is a testament to how strong it is.  
  
If it’s here, and if it’s what tempted Kylo in the first place--  
  
Rey shoves at it with every fiber of her being. She draws hard from the Force, the way she did when she fought Kylo for the first time. She allows it to charge through her, to split atom after atom until she feels that white-hot star sensation inside of her, hot and brilliant and _nothing_ like the raw light of that monster in the cave. If the Dark wears two masks, then she shows this side of the Dark her side of the Light, and she _pushes_.  
  
It’s an odd sensation, to feel it reel back, like a creature being struck. But it’s gone in seconds, leaving Rey practically glowing from the inside out. She pulls in heavy breaths, her nerves tingling, her body alight with the remains of its power. When she looks at Obi-Wan in both relief and confirmation, she’s surprised to see him staring at her, as if he isn’t sure what he’s just seen. For a moment, this worries her, until she sees him smile.  
  
He offers no words of wisdom, and instead simply waves his hand at her. “ _Seek your vision, Rey,_ ” he says, but his voice carries a note of unmistakable pride.  
  
With the Force still moving through her as untainted and clear as a spring, Rey does what he says. She reaches for something she cannot see, and pulls it towards her. _The future,_ she thinks. In her mind, it’s like grasping dark, smooth fabric, cold and silk-like in her hands. As soon as she’s aware that she’s touched it, she pulls it even closer, until she can see into it.  
  
The visions come all at once, the same way they came to her on Takodana. They flash through her mind, bright and continuous, one blending into another.  
  
She sees Dagobah in the darkness, thunder rumbling so loudly that she can feel it through the ground. Lightning blazes star-bright in the sky, lighting up a muddy clearing that ripples with each raindrop. Standing in its midst is Kylo, his lightsaber back in his hand. Its blade is red and angry, rippling like uncontrolled rage. She watches him turn, his eyes practically black in the darkness, his face contorted in fury. He rears back with both arms, slashing right in a strike and--  
  
The interior of the Resistance base on D’Qar. Machines still churn and rattle, and everything is lit by the ghostly blue-green light of the many screens constantly streaming data from across the galaxy. Everything seems normal, save for the personnel, all looking like they wish they were anywhere else. Some try to keep busy, checking and rechecking information, keeping up communications that have been open for hours. In the heart of it all is General Organa, one hand clasped over her mouth, another clenched tight on the rim of the projector console. There are tears streaming down her face. At her side is Poe Dameron, one hand on the General’s arm in a gesture of comfort. He seems upset as well, or perturbed, but clearly trying to stay strong for her. He opens his mouth to say something--  
  
Her own hand, gripping the white-silver handle of an unfamiliar lightsaber. _Fight,_ says a voice. It’s Luke’s, Anakin’s, Obi-Wan’s. They voices blend as she ignites the blade, blue-green like the one she killed her other self with. _Fight back, fight ba--_  
  
Dagobah again, in rainy daylight. Instead of the X-wing, there is some kind of transport she hasn’t seen. It’s black and new, shining in the pale watery light of the planet. Underneath one wing, she can see the symbol of the First Order in steel gray, displayed all too proudly. Its hatch opens, floodlights blinding--  
  
Rey snaps out of the vision, gasping for breath again. She feels dizzy and off-kilter, vertigo trying to drag her to the ground. It takes a moment to get her bearings back, and she fights to try to keep the visions in order, to try to make sense of them. Kylo fighting, Leia weeping, her own hand wielding the lightsaber from the cave, a First Order ship on Dagobah. It all points to something terrible, and something tells Rey that it all begins with that presence and its power over Kylo.  
  
“I have to go,” she repeats, her voice strained.  
  
“ _Yes,_ ” Obi-Wan agrees. He sounds more troubled, and she looks up to see him with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression drawn. “ _Be careful, Rey._ ”  
  
She says nothing more to him, instead turning away and running back toward the camp.  
  
Her feet seem to move on their own, and she thinks of nothing while she runs except for what could have possibly harmed Kylo. It wasn’t like he was unarmed when she left him. He was within steps of his lightsaber, and he certainly has the physical training to protect himself while unarmed if that was the case. What confuses her is that she felt no other addition to the Force on Dagobah during her meditation, save for the presence that she drove away. If that was enough to hurt him, or to cause a disturbance of that level that she felt it without searching for it, then something has gone horribly wrong.  
  
She makes it back to the camp in record time, and there’s some relief in seeing S4-M1 sitting there beside the X-wing, and both are intact. The droid wheels around to look at her, letting out a high-pitched chirp of greeting. They don’t exude any sort of panic, which is some comfort.  
  
“S4-M1, is Kylo still here?” Rey asks, going down on her knees beside them.  
  
S4-M1 chirps a negative, and then gives a few stray long whistles. _Not for about two hours._  
  
Two hours of him being alone, possibly with what ever the presence was. The panic floods back into her gradually, and she grounds herself a little by patting the droid on its dome. “I’m going to go look for him. If he comes back, tell him to wait and try to get in contact with me,” she orders, and S4-M1 gives another pleasant little chirp.  
  
She gets back to her feet and starts off toward the swamp to the west of the camp, where she’s meditated before. His signature is still absent to her, not even concealed so much as it just isn’t _there._ Dread twists cold in her gut and she hurries her steps, beseeching the Force to guide her. _To him. To a body if..._ She doesn’t want to think it’s possible, but the outlook isn’t good.  
  
It’s also possible, if not a little less probable, that he’s managed to leave the planet. But Rey thinks that she would have noticed him leaving, or one of the ghosts would have. Anakin would have, more than anyone, and she doubts he wouldn’t tell her. Just to be sure, she mentally calls out to Anakin, reaching for him and the blazing sunlight of his signature. What alarms here even more is that there’s no response. There’s no sign of him either.  
  
Ghosts can’t die, can they? she thinks. The Force is a strange thing, so anything could happen. It’s just hard to imagine anything snuffing out the ghost of one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy’s history.  
  
When she gets to the edge of the western swamp, it’s empty. There’s no sign of Kylo or any indication he had been there. There’s hardly a footprint in the dirt. As she stands there trying to catch her breath, the rain starts, but she barely notices. “Kylo?” she calls, and as she expected, there’s no response.  
  
The TIE fighter. If it’s still there, then it’s very possible he’s still on the planet. She can’t imagine that even he could have saved it from the swamp and repaired it enough to get it shipshape again in that time. But the possibility keeps her running, dodging roots and branches as best she can. The tangle of jungle and swamp is hard to navigate, but Rey doesn’t have time to try to hack through it. The Force moves her feet, her shoulders, her head, pulling her toward something, some _one_ that may be dead or alive.  
  
And that’s when she starts to see the signs.  
  
Charred black marks scored into tree trunks, branches hacked away harshly and clumsily, deep gouges in the earth. Rey has seen the marks before when they camped at Yoda’s hut, when he destroyed the tree stump. Her surroundings bare the marks of some kind of struggle, and it’s clear enough to know that he’s been nearby. Rey slows her steps to a halt near a half-dead gnarltree nearly bisected from a lightsaber strike. She runs her fingers over it and is surprised to find it cold. It’s been awhile since he was there, but it was certainly _him_.  
  
When she moves again, the farther she goes, the more destructive the rampage seems to be. Trees are cut down completely and vines are sliced away. There’s a trail of decimation, and the more she follows it, the more worried she becomes at what she’ll find at the end.  
  
“Kylo?” she tries again, and she tries to ignore the tremble in her voice.  
  
Nothing. Even the jungle has gone silent. There is only the hiss of rain around her, the gentlest rumble of thunder in the distance.  
  
“ _Give up,_ ” a voice whispers to her suddenly. It sounds like Qui-Gon, his voice just as warm as she remembers, but his words seem at ends with his tone. “ _You won’t find him here. It would be best to turn back._ ”  
  
Rey looks around, but sees nothing. Only the evening dark of Dagobah greets her.  
  
“ _I’ve learned many things since my life ended,_ ” he goes on. “ _And one of the lessons I learned from my own death is that there are such things as lost causes._ ”  
  
No, not Kylo. He couldn’t possibly be talking about him. Rey frowns, and her hand instinctively grasps her lightsaber. “What are you talking about?” she asks.  
  
“ _The path you’ve chosen may best be followed without attachments. So turn away from him. He’ll do nothing for you._ ”  
  
Before Rey can speak, to tell him that he’s wrong, Yoda’s voice fills her mind. “ _Master Qui-Gon is right,_ ” he says, his voice sounding almost disappointed. “ _Attachments you must not form. Loss you will feel, and weakness will follow. Destruction, your path will end in._ ”  
  
Another voice, unfamiliar, but deep and low and sonorous. “ _You don’t realize how blind you’ve become,_ ” this voice says, his tone authoritative and almost regal. “ _He’s been fooling you. You honestly think he would just turn his back on everything he had for you? No, what you need to do is leave Dagobah now._ ”  
  
Then, Obi-Wan’s voice. It sounds tired and sore, like his entire being aches. “ _Something has changed, Rey. You need to go while you still can, while you’re still safe._ ”  
  
The voices all then seem to clash together, telling her the same things over and over. She’s failed somehow, they say. She needs to go, needs to get far away from Dagobah and abandon Kylo. He’s a lost cause, a failure, an attachment she never should have formed. The voices press against her, and there’s only so much she can do to try to block them out, or to speak over them. She’s moments away from pressing her hands over her ears to silence them when another voice speaks, clearer, yet softer than the others.  
  
“ _Rey,_ ” the voice whispers, as gentle as fabric fluttering in a breeze. It’s a woman, her tone so quiet and lovely that it seems to lull all the other voices to momentary silence. “ _Seek the truth for yourself._ ”  
  
As soon as the voice says that, the realization hits her all at once. As much as she’s heard the voices, it’s the first time that she hasn’t felt them in the Force. Sweeping through them, she feels nothing, _sees_ nothing. There is no prism, no beacon, no starlight. It’s just the emptiness she’s felt before, save for one thing.  
  
Soft as a sigh, the presence brushes against her mind. It’s like sheer fabric caught in a breeze, translucent and quiet. It’s not a sun, or even a twinkle of starlight. It’s more like a moon, reflecting light like a mirror. There’s the barest scent of flowers, of warm grass in the sun. Rey feels warm hands on her shoulders, but at the same time, she feels nothing at all. She knows if she opens her eyes, there will be nothing but the rainy dark of Dagobah. This is no ghost, and not a Jedi. There are very few words for what it is, and none of them are in a language Rey understands.  
  
She knows what it is, but at the same time, she doesn’t. Its presence is comforting, like warm hands on her shoulders, like fingers running through her hair. With it nearby, Rey can hardly feel the cold feeling of the rain soaking into her clothes or the wind blowing frigid against her skin. She feels something strange and wonderful and _familiar_.  
  
“ _Listen,_ ” the voice whispers, lovely like a song. “ _No one is beyond hope. You know this, don’t you?_ ”  
  
Yes, Rey wants to say. The word is there, but her voice fails her. She wants to bask in the warmth of this spirit forever, and no words can make it past her tongue as she revels in it.  
  
“ _You’re so strong, Rey. So brilliant. There are so many good things in store for you. You need to trust in yourself and your abilities, and you can do anything. Believe me._ ”  
  
Rey does believe her. The presence seems to wrap itself around her like a comforting blanket, like an embrace, and Rey wishes she could sink into it.  
  
“ _What spoke to you in those voices also spoke to him,_ ” the voice continues, and in Rey’s mind, she sees Kylo. Not angry or hurt, but the way she saw him when she woke up in the hut. She sees him as vulnerable, and _human_. “ _You can resist it, but he has a far more difficult time. He isn’t beyond your reach, Rey, but he needs help_.”  
  
This time, Rey does manage to speak. Her voice sounds far away to her own ears, like she’s hearing herself in a dream. “Is he alive?” she asks.  
  
“ _Yes, and he’s still on the planet,_ ” the voice replies. “ _You can find him._ ”  
  
She can. The voice makes her feel like there’s nothing stopping her, even as the rain comes down harder and the thunder rumbles loud enough to shake the ground. Something urges her along, makes her put one foot in front of the other, causes each step to be made with more confidence. He’s not dead, and he’s out there _somewhere_.  
  
As the moonlight presence fades from Rey’s mind, it leaves her one final image, a thought she’s seen before but through the eyes of another. She feels sadness, yearning, hope, _love_ , and she sees a field cast gold in sunlight. Thousands of flowers bloom around her, their colors warm and radiant.  
  
Padmé’s spirit leaves her, and Rey presses on into the stormy night.  
  
\---  
  
Rey doesn’t know how much time passes, but when she starts to feel exhaustion creep into her, the storm is howling around her and Dagobah is plunged into a deeper darkness than she’s experienced so far. The swamp is lit in eerie flashes of lightning, bone-white against pitch black, and it takes as much of her courage as she can summon to press on. Truthfully, she wants to be back at the camp, safe under the gnarltree with S4-M1 nearby. She wouldn’t even mind Yoda’s hut again, and to keep herself going, she imagines the fire in the alcove, somehow cheery despite the dilapidated ruin around it.  
  
But she can’t leave Kylo out here, wherever he is. She knows he’s alive, but she doesn’t know if he’s injured. His bones are more than likely healed from the last time, but there’s still a vulnerability there. And the Dark presence, predatory and horrible as it was, could have done something awful to him. If it nearly tricked her even after she pushed it away, she can only imagine what it would have been capable of doing to him.  
  
So Rey continues, even when everything seems to be at its darkest and stormiest. Of course she entertains the thought of stopping for the night, finding a cave or a tree to huddle under until the worst of the storm passes. It would be easy to sleep for a few hours and work her strength back up, or at least wait until the visibility is better. She’s going completely by a combination of instinct and where the Force seems to be taking her, but it still doesn’t seem like enough. Yet despite all of the odds stacked against her, and the pressing need to stop, she doesn’t. She _refuses_. Kylo is still out there, and in the hours it would take for her to rest, worse things could be happening to him.  
  
Even after they began trusting each other, she still doesn’t know the extent of what’s happened to him in the past, yet something tells her that people have abandoned him. She doesn’t think Leia did, but she doesn’t know. She can’t speak for him or imagine his life story on his behalf. Rey simply doesn’t want to be another notch on that pole, one more person to turn their back on him. She won’t give up, not in the face of a storm, or the murky deep darkness of Dagobah, or what ever seems to fight her every step of the way.  
  
So she presses on, blinded by the darkness and the rain, trusting every step to the Force.  
  
Then, she feels something. It’s almost imperceptible, subdued and silent enough that in any other situation, she might think it’s a large creature or one of the many spirits on the planet. But the way it reveals itself, like a ghostly light in the distance, is too uncanny. Rey immediately pursues it, her steps quickening, her eyes squinted against the rain slanting in the wind.  
  
“Kylo!” she shouts, although his name is practically muted by the howling storm.  
  
The light seems to grow brighter, _stronger_ , and Rey is completely certain that she’s found something. Even if it isn’t _him_ , it’s something bigger and more powerful than any creature on Dagobah.  
  
Rey practically sprints, mud splattering up over her shins and calves, her clothes soaked through in the rain. She doesn’t care, not now. It’s so close, so--  
  
A strange sensation shudders through her, up and down her spine like a current, through every nerve ending. Rey stops, her breath hitching, her eyes wide. It’s like something has frozen her, seizing every muscle and tendon. Even in the darkness, the lightning makes it clear that her vision is beginning to cloud.  
  
The last thing she sees before she hits the ground is the glowing red cross of Kylo’s lightsaber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)   
>  [Writing tumblr](http://clockworkcourier.tumblr.com)
> 
> Do you have a belief in the paranormal? Do you enjoy romping through x amount of feet of swamp water and mud? Do you never want to feel clean again for the rest of your life? Do you like having deep conversations with any number of sassy, witty dead Jedi?
> 
> IF SO, THE DAGOBAH PARANORMAL SOCIETY IS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU!!
> 
> Join our small but dedicated team as we search the endless swamps, jungles, and terrifying caves of Dagobah for traces of paranormal activity! We are a very active group operating in the vicinity of the Western Swamp. Our team uses advanced articles of technology such as astromech droids, those cracking glowing light tubes, our gut feelings, and Kylo Ren's bones in order to detect paranormal activity. You can accompany us on field trips to places such as Dark Side Cave where you will face your absolute worst fears and possibly be left with crippling trauma and a need to cleanse yourself of your transgressions, or Yoda's Hut where you can see a tiny strange green gremlin who tells you not to form romantic attachments, or weak you shall be!
> 
> If interested, please contact Rey at X-Wing Camp, Western Swamp, by maybe leaving a note in a log or something.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES IT DIDN'T TAKE ME TWO MONTHS TO DO THIS. ONLY ONE. YEAHHHH.
> 
> And I'm proud to say that I really loved writing this chapter, once I got into the full swing of it. It only took me a million hours of agonizing over the first few paragraphs to finally set that bad boy into motion. But yes! It's here! I love it and it's trippy and full of grammar horror and I looooove it! It was just fun to write and I treated it like the best writing exercise I could get. Hopefully y'all like it, too. <3
> 
> [LOOK AT THIS AMAZING MOOD BOARD BTW](http://dracadancer.tumblr.com/post/144675567620/the-purest-place-in-the-galaxy-mood-board-by)

Once more, Rey dreams of Jakku.  
  
In her dream, the sun is setting, staining the sand and the dunes in shades of red, gold, and violet. The sky is a deep indigo, the stars a brilliant glimmering tapestry against the black silhouettes of the mountains and wreckages. She feels the heat of the day drift with every passing moment, the sand growing cool under her feet, the moon slowly rising and beginning to cast everything in a ghostly light. It’s all so familiar, and yet, she feels like she’s stepped onto the planet for the first time.   
  
She comes to Jakku as a stranger, and yet she follows familiar pathways. There’s a crease in a dune that she follows, deep and pocked in sandswept footprints, and even though she knows deep down that it’s an old Teedo route, she also feels like she’s never seen it before. Still, her feet carry her down the path, deep into a sun-scorched valley that slowly turns silver in the moonlight. She walks as if in a trance, down deeper and deeper, until she sees a shape in the distance, like a carrion-picked creature with its remains being claimed once and for all by the relentless sand.   
  
It’s the AT-AT, and for the first time, Rey does not immediately think of the word ‘home’.  
  
Instinct leads her step by step, and each step feels like a memory.   
  
Right foot. When she came back to the AT-AT, young and sand-blind with her goggles a shattered mess under a scavenger’s boot in the belly of the _Inflictor_. Crying was painful, so she dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, curled up in her hammock, breathed heavy, and waited for sleep.  
  
Left foot. The first time she experienced the X’us’R’iia. The darkness of the AT-AT, only lit by the pale light trickling through the holes in the metal. The AT-AT groaning in the relentless wind, the breath of a god, the divine punishment. There was relentless thunder, and something in the back of Rey’s mind whispered something about rain.  
  
Right foot. Cleaning her bloody hands after nearly shearing off her palm on a piece of loose metal attached to the remains of an X-Wing. Her only thoughts were about how if she died of starvation, no one would find her. No one would ever know she was gone.  
  
Left foot. Those long, lonely nights where she would lay under the stars, her lips moving in a silent conversation to the people who left her behind. There were only so many ways to say ‘come back’.  
  
Rey ducks into the belly of the machine, immediately hit by the stuffy heat accumulated throughout the day and the musty smell of abandonment. It’s difficult to see, but Rey knows there isn’t much to look at regardless. True to the nature of Jakku and its inhabitants, the AT-AT is stripped of everything that might have had value. The flight simulator and every wire attached to it, the hammock and the blankets, any ration packs she might have hidden away, even the little pilot doll. There are only scraps left, things that couldn’t fetch a price.  
  
She walks through the space, fingers ghosting over familiar corners and edges. Then, she touches the tally marks gouged into the metal. Each one has a story, a day in her life, some scratched with desperation, others with recklessness, some with mindless exhaustion. Each is a chapter, one after another, until they end. That final tally has the biggest story, the longest chapter, one that hasn’t ended yet.   
  
The emptiness doesn’t upset her. She doesn’t feel robbed in any way, like her life and her past has been stolen from her. If anything, she feels relief, a sensation that she hasn’t left anything behind. Every object taken from her former home is just as it is; an object. Objects are things to be scavenged, to be moved around from place to place, to be paid for and bartered, to be lost and found again. She’s done enough of that in her life, and the planet has moved on without her. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and thousands more to follow, the scavengers of Jakku will wake up no worse for the wear because she’s gone. The desert sands will shift, the wrecks in the Graveyard will continue their slow decay, their innards will continue being spilled until there is nothing left, and parts will just keep being bartered. People will be born, people will live, people will die, and none of it will simply end because Rey is no longer present.  
  
There is something satisfying, perhaps a little vindictive, that burns deep down inside of her. It’s that feeling of breaking predetermination, of standing in its face and raising a fist to it and telling it in no uncertain terms that it’s lost all of its power. The thing is, Rey has waited long enough, and there is something that burns like starlight in her when she quashes that last little remainder of guilt, that persistent voice that says, ‘ _Are you sure you’ve waited long enough? What’s one more day? What if you leave and they come and you’re not there anymore?_ ’   
  
Then they come. It’s as simple as that. Rey’s done all of her waiting, and while she knows that someone out there did care for her once, things have changed.   
  
So she’ll walk away from all of it again, and leave Jakku just the way it is. It’ll just be a tiny pinpoint of light in the sky, or completely invisible, depending on where in the galaxy she is. There’s nothing left for her anymore except some old, dusty memories that are on par with the musty, tomb-like interior of the walker. If someone lands there and looks for her, they’ll find nothing, except maybe some stories of her escape, exaggerated in a way that can only be done at a trading post. There will be no remains of her life to pick through, to scavenge, and she’s completely at peace with that.  
  
Awareness begins to flood through her as she moves to exit the AT-AT, and it feels like the sands beginning to shift, the beginnings of a divine storm. It’s an awakening, a great yawning openness that stands before her, wider and brighter than the desert, grander in scale than any Imperial wreckage. She walks towards it, knowing to a degree what waits for her on the other side. There’s no fear in her, though, and no trepidation. Just a sureness in each step, and a feeling that blazes brilliant inside of her.  
  
She has people she cares for now, people that she would give her life to protect. And at the end of it all, no matter what faces her, she won’t abandon them. She will _never_ leave them stranded.  
  
That in mind, Rey steps outside of the walker, and each step feels like something new.  
  
Right foot. The beginnings of a supernova, the destruction of something old and burnt out. Energy collapsing it on itself, like death, like something waiting to be created.  
  
Left foot. The star reforging itself through its own destruction, exploding outward with light and color and unbridled brilliance, something so powerful that it cannot be contained.  
  
Right foot. The birth of a new _something_. Nestled in a cradle of stardust and raw energy, molding itself into its new shape.  
  
Left foot.  
  
And Rey wakes up.  
  
\---  
  
For a moment, Rey thinks she’s back at the camp. The darkness is thick, but the lightning illuminates the curves of a gnarltree’s roots above her. She blinks once, twice, and then turns her head to get a better idea of her surroundings. With a sinking feeling, she sees that there’s no X-wing, no S4-M1 in sight. There is nothing recognizable about where she is, and once she gets her bearings a little better, the fear starts to creep cold into her, like rainwater leaching into her clothes.  
  
Something knocked her unconscious, although her head isn’t pounding and aside from an ache in her back from laying on the ground, nothing hurts. She has no wounds, and there isn’t an extra presence in her head that would denote that the malicious part of the Dark side has taken hold. There is only that remaining clarity from her dream, still burning supernova-hot inside of her. And there’s also that sensation left over, of her need to stay with the people she cares about, to make sure that she never abandons them. Even now, Kylo Ren is one of those people, despite everything that has happened. She knows that there’s good in him, and he has that ability to use the Dark to shape the Light, for the two to coexist inside of him in a way that has rarely been done. But he’s still so vulnerable, and Rey will be damned if she leaves the planet without stopping the Dark from overcoming him and drowning him. For that matter, she resolves to herself that if he _does_ succumb to it in its entirety, and there’s no hope for him otherwise (she tells herself that it can’t be possible), she _will_ stop him.  
  
For now, though, she tries to realign herself in the Force, to reach beyond the storm that is howling around her, to sense _him_ and all the other creatures on the planet. It’s easier, somehow, and yet more difficult. Something has clearly changed, and it’s difficult to pinpoint _what_ it is. She doesn’t sink into the Force like she would when she meditates, so much as she seems to exist between layers. She’s still under the gnarltree, still on Dagobah, still Rey in her own skin with her aching back and the storm blasting her with frigid rain. But she’s also one light in the great web of the Force, cosmic and universal, one part of the great whole. It’s strange to be both at once when she’s trained to be one or the other.   
  
When she reaches out to find Kylo, she reaches as two beings sharing one body. In one dimension, she looks for him with her human eyes, squinting against the sideways rain, trying to see shapes in the darkness and feeling the thunder rumbling like a constant roar. In the other, she’s casting a line in the Force, sensing and reaching, filtering through _trillions_ of lifeforms to find one. It almost throws her off, this bisected version of herself that at the same time, melds together like someone soldered her in her sleep. But she steadies herself and tries to focus on both forms.  
  
Darkness meets her on both planes. The literal, tangible darkness that she finds herself blinded by, not yielding a single lifeform, and then the Darkness, crawling and oozing like mud, trying to crawl up the line she’s thrown, trying to seep _into_ her.   
  
He’s there, though. She knows it. She saw him before she fell unconscious, or at least the scorching cross of his lightsaber. It doesn’t make sense for him to disappear now, and she knows he hasn’t left the planet and left her behind. It was only a moment, but she could sense the conflict within him, the dichotomy that seemed to be perpetual within him burning hotter and brighter than it did when he first came to Dagobah. It was only a second, or perhaps less, but it told her plenty. He’s fighting something, within him or around him or both, and there is _no_ reason he would just leave her.  
  
And for the first time in awhile, she doesn’t have to think about what to do. Her soldered self, her two pieces melded as one, thinks for her, thinks _ahead_. In the span of time that would mentally summon perhaps a thought, she feels herself paging through ten. Her mind races faster than it ever has, this new clarity providing a transparent pane of understanding where it was simply translucent before.   
  
_The Force. I control it. It controls me. I can move it, I can move through it, I can change its course and I can move through its alignments._  
  
These thoughts pulse through her like a heartbeat, but at a speed that almost leaves her dizzy. It’s all _her_ though. There is no Jedi spirit speaking in her mind. In fact, she’s completely alone otherwise. Every thought that flutters is her own, in her voice and coming from her core.   
  
_I can reach for him, and I will find him._  
  
She does. All of this happens in her mind in the space of an exhale, and by the time she begins to inhale, she’s already working through the motions. Her line is cast anew, and the Darkness that tries to crawl up its length seems to be incinerated the second it touches her. And so she reaches deeper and deeper, through any cover he might have created for himself. And it _finds_ him. _She_ finds him, not very far away from where she sits. She can’t read him, though. There is no emotional outburst fringing his being, nothing that would denote how he feels. He simply _is_ , but it’s enough to work with.  
  
_Draw him in. Move him. Bring him here so we can meet face to face._  
  
Rey wonders if she’s strong enough to do that, if she has the ability to bend the will of someone so Force sensitive. All the same, whether it works or not, she tries. She reaches out, almost gently at first. She doesn’t want to believe that the Dark has gotten the best of him. She wants to think that he’s so much stronger than it is. He’s powerful, and while he’s shown his level of potential before to others, Rey feels like she’s one of the few who know how promising it really is. It’s more than Snoke could ever harness, and _far_ more than what he could hope to control. At least, that’s what Rey _wants_ to believe. She’s seen it for herself, and she just hopes that Kylo has that level of inner strength to keep all of those temptations away.  
  
And yet once she brushes over him, she feels something terrible. It’s familiar, and with a horrid jolt that seems to go soul-deep, she realizes _why_. It’s that same cold emptiness she felt in the cave, facing her identical counterpart that was constructed out of pure Light. But this is the Dark, an empty chasm where Kylo had been. _We will blot out the stars one by one,_ it seems to say. It whispers to Rey even though she’s nearly immune to it. _Can’t you feel it, girl? Can’t you feel that power?_  
  
She does, and she immediately knows how tempting it could be. It boils just under the surface, like it’s under the guise of something much more simple. But beneath it, she feels the energy of it, recognizes it as some perverse, inverted version of what she feels in herself. It’s that center of a supernova, like the white-hot forge creating new matter, but what this one creates is far worse. Rey remembers what Kylo told her about his vision, of a world scoured to purity by something like this. Where she feared her vision coming true, she sees this as his coming to reality.  
  
Unbidden, her memory stirs and supplies her a view of Kylo’s memories. She sees that half-Kylo monster, his mask melded with his skull, his presence deafening in its level of darkness.   
  
And Rey decides that she will _not_ see it come to that.  
  
“Come _on,_ ” she says out loud, trying to will him to move towards her. At the same time, in that bilevel way that she’s experiencing, she tries to draw out his emotions, to tap into something that will let her know that he’s still in there somewhere. “ _Come on,_ ” she repeats, and she pours all of her focus into that.  
  
It works, somehow, but not in a way she expects. Rather than exposing it like brushing sand off metal, it feels more like something is being torn, something hidden under fabric that has to be cut. And it’s _painful_. She feels the tear almost soul-deep, and if she experiences it just from pulling at him, she can’t begin to imagine how it feels for him. But she’s not going to stop until he’s in front of her, until she can _do_ something.  
  
Still, she can feel something beneath that layer, flickering like it’s teetering between unconscious and conscious; like he’s halfway there and halfway gone. It frightens her in a way she can’t explain, less that he’s dangerous, and more that he’s _in_ danger.  
  
Something splits under her focus, like skin opening into a gaping wound, and Rey gasps. She physically _jerks_ at the sensation, reeling back so that her back is against one of the thickest roots of the tree. Suddenly, there’s a horrible churning in the Force terrifyingly similar to the storm howling and shrieking above and around her, like some great beast going through its death throes. For a moment, Rey can’t tell if the sound she hears is the storm, or _someone_. And it doesn’t register as anything other than pain that burns red in her awareness, until she realizes that something _else_ is burning red.  
  
There’s a shriek, part wind, part lightsaber, and Rey’s vision is full of sparks and smoke. She gasps again, watching as a root in front of her is bisected. The lower half of it falls into the mud at her feet, and Rey tilts her head back to see Kylo Ren in front of her, just outside the protective ring of roots.  
  
He looks like some kind of fever dream. For the moments that he’s illuminated by the storm, Rey can see that he’s wearing the pilot’s jacket over his regular clothes, his hair is plastered to his face, his breath comes in sickening heaves like he’s choking on it, and his posture denotes pain and raw fury. He’s closed in on himself, shoulders up, head hunched, but his feet are still a shoulder-width apart. His lightsaber burns like magma at his side, and it sparks and hisses worse than it ever has, like it’s feeding off its master’s aura. And the parallels do not escape Rey. She knows the position she’s in is almost ironic, her at his feet under the gnarltree, while he stands above her like a threat. All that’s missing is the steel cables.  
  
Kylo doesn’t say a word. He simply stares at her, his teeth clenched, his hands trembling. In the strobe of lightning, he looks like a monster. Then, with a howl that can only be described as anguished, he takes the lightsaber in both hands and rears back like he intends to split the gnarltree in half.   
  
Rey ducks and rolls out of the way, and the lightsabers arc just barely misses her. She falls into the mud, and in desperation, slides and scrambles to a standing position. Fortunately, her lightsaber is still clipped to her belt, which she finds surprising. If he was the one to knock her unconscious, it baffles her that he left her armed. Still, she’s not ungrateful, and it takes the span of a second to unclip it and activate it. With a hiss, it comes to life, like a lightning bolt contained. She moves just fast enough to block another one of his attacks with it, and the blades meet with a strained shriek. He pushes _hard_ , sending her back two steps before she manages to match his push. Her feet slide in the mud, but she grounds herself enough to be stable, and twists her arms _just_ enough to send him reeling back a step.  
  
This isn’t what she wants. She wants to speak to him, to tell him to fight this the way she did. But words fail her when she sees how far gone he is. His attacks are primal, instinctual in a way that makes her think of a cornered animal trying to fight its way out. It’s all fight or flight, and he’s attempting to do both.   
  
“ _Kylo!_ ” she yells, and at the same time, she presses against his mind as gently as she can. It doesn’t work, as he just barely seems to register that she’s there.   
  
She swings at him, temporarily abandoning any attempt at formal lightsaber forms. This is barely the time for that, as they’ve gone from two potential Jedi to two people fighting to survive against something that they don’t understand. He acts as if she’s the one trying to kill him, and she believes the same of him.   
  
And it needs to stop, _now_. They’ve come so far as both individuals and as a pair, and Rey will _not_ see that disposed of. The two of them have gone through obstacle after obstacle, both before and during the course of the events on Dagobah. She’s seen his insecurities, his fears, the things that built him and created him. She knows the future he’s afraid to face, and she knows that he’s facing it now in a way he’s never done before. All of the pressure is baring down on him, threatening to snap him like a brittle bone.   
  
Rey pushes harder this time. Physically, she takes three steps forward, striking at him with each step not so much to hurt him, but to drive him back. She needs space to move, to try to think. He just barely defends, and tries to turn every block into a strike. Fortunately, she’s just a hair faster, and with the clarity still within her, she knows what to do now more than ever. He parries each strike, taking one step back each time, just like she’s planned.  
  
Mentally, and perhaps spiritually, she hits him _hard._ She aims it with the precision of a blaster shot, and she puts a good portion of her concentration into it.  
  
_You’re better than this. You’re_ stronger _than this. You’ve overcome so much, and you can overcome this if you_ try _._  
  
It hits him, but it does very little. He simply grits his teeth and yells incomprehensibly. One step in her direction, two strikes left and right. Rey almost trips over her own feet with how quickly he drives her back, the red of his blade practically splicing with the blue of hers.   
  
It’s not going to be enough with just trying to be positive. He can’t just be encouraged by a few words or a positive thought. It wasn’t enough to just gently try to persuade him. Rey has to be stronger than the Dark. She has to drive it away from him the same way she drove it away from herself.   
  
And something tells her that there’s a chance it could hurt him.  
  
The thing is, she knows from Anakin and Obi-Wan that she can’t truly _save_ Kylo. He isn’t hers to rescue, the way that she was never truly rescued herself. She was given the tools and the opportunity to leave Jakku, to leave behind a life she thought she would never escape. But so much of it was her own initiative and power, presented to her like a fledgling, hers to raise and shape until it became something that was completely _Rey._  
  
So while she can fight Kylo, and fight _for_ him, she can’t pull him out and expect him to be fine. Whatever she does is going to hurt, and the damage can be lasting, but she has to take that chance. She can give him that platform to work from, the one piece that could be missing, or just the leverage he needs to push off this _thing_ that burdens him. She’ll give him that much, though, and hopefully that strength that she counts on will be just enough to bring him back into reality, away from that tempest that roars inside of him.  
  
_Kylo. Ben. Whoever you are in there, please listen to me,_ she pleads. Nothing registers on his face. Instead, he reels back one step before running at her, his strikes getting more erratic. She fends them off as best she can, trying to cushion each blow.   
  
_Please._ She pushes harder. This isn’t going to be a blaster shot. This is going to be something the level of the system-crushing blast from Starkiller. This is going to be the sort of thing that could wipe him out. In her mind, she sees the fallout-red glow of a dying galaxy, and then she sees him as that _monster_ , one side of his face human, the other purely machine. She sees the things in her own vision, of Leia weeping, of the First Order ship on Dagobah, and it all traces itself back to this moment.  
  
Because she knows where she is. Where she stands now is the same place she saw in her vision with Obi-Wan.   
  
Kylo Ren turns to face her, his face contorted in pure anger, his mind almost gone. He swings back, aiming right, like he intends to cut her down, and--  
  
Rey doesn’t push. She doesn’t shove. She _fires._  
  
\---  
  
There’s a moment like weightlessness, like losing the gravity control in a ship. Kylo Ren feels as if his body weighs nothing. He feels as if his bones are bird-light, like all of the blood in his body is lighter than air. It’s not a _good_ feeling, though, so much as its that feeling of being out of control. He can’t turn, can’t twist himself away from what ever causes this sensation. There’s just _nothingness_ around him, black and empty and lifeless and cold. What he feels is something older than the galaxy itself, ancient in a way that cannot be defined by numbers and facts.  
  
There is darkness. There is _nothing_.  
  
And right when the sensation inside of him crests to something like fear, he _falls._  
  
He moves through what feels like thousands of memories, and yet he experiences them all at once. They erupt in furious exultations of color and sound, a cross between raw euphoria and concentrated agony. Kylo feels like he’s being torn apart and forged back together, and all of this while he dives through thoughts and memory, of things he’s seen and things he’s never seen before.  
  
In one memory, he sees himself as a child, clinging to his mother’s hand as they watch the blue glow of the back of a ship. It seems to escape the atmosphere, like it’s trying to escape _them_. The child and the adult in him both feel a painful catch in their throat, and they both try to suppress it because Han told them to be _strong_.  
  
Another memory, of the streets of some tiny outpost planet with maybe two trading posts on the entire surface. The dirt clings to his boots as a red dust, and he’s told that if he breathes too much in, he’ll die within hours. His mask filters through it with compressed, electronic heaves, and he watches a pair of children dart across the road, completely unhindered by the toxins around them. No one fears him here, and they won’t for at least another hour. But his lightsaber is at his side, loyal and permanent. By nightfall, the streets will be stained with a different kind of red.  
  
Then, a half-memory, half-hallucination. He sees a row of his Knights standing on a precarious edge of razor-sharp stone. He stands below them, like he’s awaiting judgment. They’re all statue-still, a row of stern judges with an execution in mind. One steps forward, points at him, and his voice is a rumble of thunder.  
  
And then he’s in the training grounds with Asha again, the narrow slits of her Mandalorian mask peering at him. There’s a blaster pistol in her hand this time, and she doesn’t dart behind a protective wall like she should, like he’s trained her to do. Instead, she stands in front of him like an easy acquaintance, just as willing to shake his hand as she is to shoot a hole through his chest. “ _Have you done it?_ ” she asks, her voice reduced to a modulated hiss so that he barely understands it. Again, and again. “ _Have you done it? Have you done it?_ ” A shot from her blaster bleeds his vision into red, and it changes again.  
  
Another Knight, hair red like fire, like blood, like the banner of the First Order. She stands on the bridge of a ship, turned away from him, her arms crossed over her chest. The galaxy is spread nightmare-black before her, and he can see the edges of a smile on her face as she looks upon in like some beatific being. Savat Ren just barely turns towards him, enough that he can see the lights from the control panel reflect in her eyes, and she smirks. “ _Sir?_ ” she says, and her voice is like smoke, curling blue and gray in contrast to the redred _red--_  
  
Now on the same bridge of his ship, watching the Hosnian system being reduced to fire and ruin. But then it’s another system, and another. The scene before him seems to dial back in its own timeline, its astronomy in retrograde. The Hosnian system pieces itself back together, and five more systems do the same. But then, it’s a blue and green planet, assembling itself like a piece of shattered pottery, carefully putting its shards into proper order. “ _Alderaan is peaceful,_ ” his mother’s voice says, _pleads_. And then he watches Alderaan ignite and hears millions of lives end.  
  
The timeline continues to warp and twist. He sees Endor, he sees Yavin, he sees Hoth. He watches the galaxy go through the motions of its own rebellion, and he sees his family move through it. Luke wins, and then he fights, and he trains, and he learns, and then he stands before the smoking remains of two skeletons, their charred-black arms outstretched like they’re reaching for him. The twin suns of Tatooine glare like massive eyes in the sky, and they watch the fate of the galaxy start to set itself on his shoulders.  
  
Forward again, to dozens of bodies lining a rain-soaked walkway. Children, with training lightsabers clipped to their belts. Teenagers among them, adults that are older still. Each bares the smoking remainder of their execution blow. One massacre, and in a blink, another takes its place. This time, the children lay before the feet of a young man with a scar over one eye, with Rey’s lightsaber, with _Luke’s_ , with the sensation of doing something right and yet doing something so very _wrong._  
  
All the while, voices whip like the wind through his mind. They blend and they change and what one person says, another finishes.   
  
_You were my brother--_  
  
_\--Force be with you._  
  
_I love y--_  
  
_Join me, and together--_  
  
_\--a monster!_  
  
_I had no choice--_  
  
_\--how liberty dies--_  
  
_..._  
  
_Come home._  
  
His vision is flooded with _home_ , with all that word means. The colorful house where he was raised when Leia was a senator, the narrow passages and dimly-lit rooms of the _Falcon_ , the hut overlooking a massive gray-blue ocean where Luke trained him, and then, oddly enough, the camp where he’s stayed with Rey. There is no sign of his monochrome and spartan quarters among the First Order. No space that he’s shared with his Knights. None of that appears in the multicolored walk through his own mind.   
  
_Home. Come home. Please come home--_  
  
_Come back!_ he hears in multiple voices. One is his mother, and then his father, and Luke, and Anakin, and countless Jedi before him. And even though he hears all of those voice, at the same time, in this boiling, twisting, massive mess of his mind, he only hears one voice. It’s Rey, as an adult, as a child, pleading for her family, for her friends, for _him._   
  
And in the final act of this madness, he sees three battles at once. One in fire, one in steam, one in ice. Anakin Skywalker fights Obi-Wan Kenobi amid a sea of lava, locked in legendary combat that seems to freeze in one place, the arms raised above their heads in identical strikes. Luke Skywalker fights Darth Vader in an enclosed place in Cloud City, with steam and vapor rising from the floor, making their lightsabers hazy beams of light, and it’s here where history truly changes. And then it’s him and Rey, surrounded by the hulking black of tree trunks and the endless white of the snow. The battles blend together, until they are feverishly jumping from one place to another. One step takes him from snow to grating to black rock against bright red magma. Lightsabers clash in shrieks like the wind. History repeats itself, mocks itself, plays itself backwards, rewrites and redoes, pits friend against friend and enemy against enemy until he doesn’t know what he’s seeing, other than the same battle happening three different ways.  
  
And it ends in one strike, one that cleaves his face with such force that it seems to tear into his skull. His thoughts pour out like viscera, mixing with the gray matter of his memories, hemorrhaging with his feelings. More pours out with each heartbeat, until he feels like he’s been emptied out completely. Nothing remains inside of him, nothing to tell him who he is or what he’s seen. He simply stands before this pool of _himself_ , an outside spectator to his own death. It barely registers to him that he needs to gather it all back up and piece himself back together. There is only that sensation of emptiness, of weightlessness.  
  
But this time, it’s comforting.  
  
His visions fade back into that yawning blackness. He’s suspended, aware but unaware, awake but asleep.   
  
Then, there is a voice. Soft and warm and one that he wants to reach for, if he could only find the energy.  
  
_Kylo._  
  
_Ben._  
  
_Come back._  
  
\---  
  
There are fingers running through his hair. There’s a hand on his face, cool and wet with rainwater. Behind closed eyes, he can still see the erratic, randomly-timed flashes of lightning. He keeps his eyes closed, remains prone and weightless, even though by the second, by the _heartbeat_ , he feels himself crawling back into his own body pound by pound, like water being poured back into a container.  
  
“Please,” he hears her whisper. Her fingers push away some of the hair on his face. “Please wake up.”  
  
It strikes him, just barely, that she sounds like she’s pleading. She sounds sad, and he finds that the first feeling to truly come back to him is the strain in his chest, like a contact sadness. He wants to erase it from her somehow, as if he could. His muscles feel like they’re weighed down by the ton, his bones replaced with the heaviest metal. Even his eyelids feel like they’ve been forced shut, and it’s going to take a monumental effort to open them even a fraction.  
  
He wants to hide in himself again, to find that comforting weightlessness and resume it. He wants to sleep forever and forget about what’s out there, what’s in him, what all has taken place. But his awareness is becoming sharper and defined, and he’s starting to memorize the pressure of her fingertips, the edges of her nails when the gently scratch at his scalp.   
  
It isn’t all bad, he thinks. Being awake is becoming less of a foreboding thing. _She’s_ on the other side, gently bringing him back into himself. _No,_ she’s not doing it completely. He feels her urging him, yes, but he also feels _himself_ , working his way back into every cell in his body, weaving his mind back into its place with each stitch of a dendrite, each electric signal that hops through his neurons. He _wants_ to be awake, to open his eyes and take everything in, to see her leaning over him.  
  
And so, with all the ability he has in him, he opens his eyes.  
  
Half-open at first, and his vision is flooded with white-hot lightning. It crests the treetops and makes thick black silhouettes of them. And then the planet falls back into stormy darkness, and he closes his eyes against the rain.   
  
But he hears Rey’s breath hitch, and both of her hands are on his face.  
  
“Kylo?” she asks, and she sounds desperate. Idly, he thinks it sounds like she thought she killed him, and that strikes him as funny for some reason. A corner of his mouth twitches, and speech seems to try to crawl its way back into his mouth. All he manages is a soft mumble, the farthest thing from coherent but just enough to indicate that he’s alive.   
  
Rey is on him so fast that he realizes that he definitely is in some kind of pain. Part of his weight is on his chest, and his ribs give a protest. But the pain makes him feel more alive, more _aware_ , so he relishes in it. Her hands are cold on his face, and they pry and poke, like each movement is going to draw him closer to the surface. It actually works, as he blinks and tries to put the swimming shapes in front of him back into place to form Rey.  
  
“ _Oh!_ ” she breathes. He just registers the shift in weight and position, so her arms are half-wrapped around his neck and her forehead is pressed against the junction between his clavicles.  
  
He tries to speak again, just as much as he tries to reason out what’s happening and what just _did_ happen. His mind feels like a smoking crater, baring the signs of an eruption or an attack, but with the worst of it over.   
  
“Rey,” is what he manages, his voice sounding muffled to his own ears.   
  
Her arms tighten around him, and he thinks he hears her laugh. Or maybe it’s a sob. It’s a strained noise, coming from deep inside of her, and she follows it up with, “You’re alright,” repeated multiple times like it’s a mantra she’s clinging to.  
  
He hangs on the rise and fall of her voice, follows it through every breath and phrasing, and it grounds him a little better. He knows where he is now, still on Dagobah, still in the presence of eons worth of ghosts, still under the great dome of the outside galaxy where his fate is waiting. He’s alive, and it’s clear to him even through his muddled state that something enormous has changed within him. He doesn’t know what it is, or how to define it, but he knows that it’s taken place. Emotions come back to him as curls of frost, catching light and refracting colors in his psyche. Fear remains, and sadness, and anxiety, and...   
  
Something good. He can’t call it happiness, because he knows that isn’t what it is. It’s something stranger, something _deeper_ , and it comes in the form of the girl on his chest, holding onto him like she’s grateful for every breath he’s taking. It’s in the form of the rain falling on him, of the sensation of cold and wet on his face, of the sound of the wind and the roar of the thunder. It’s just that state of _being_ , and it feels good.   
  
It isn’t over yet, of course. He knows that nothing in his life is that simple, even in the scorched remains of his mind as it tries to rearrange itself again. The storm is still going on, blowing harder than before and causing Dagobah itself to tremble beneath him. But it’s something new and different, and Kylo knows that even after all that’s gone on, even after what the two of them have been through together, everything is changing _right here._  
  
And as his strength comes back in short-lived waves, as his mind gently puts the pieces back in place like it’s trying to reimagine a mural, as Rey holds onto him less like a lifeline and more like a reminder, there’s a voice in the back of his head, warm and familiar. It makes him think of his childhood, and it summons images of wildflowers and waterfalls and stretches of fabric of every color and the smell of leather and mechanical oil.  
  
_Ben_ , his father’s voice says, and it’s nothing but fondness. _These are your first steps._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)   
>  [Writing tumblr](http://clockworkcourier.tumblr.com)
> 
> Savat Ren is lovingly borrowed via permission from [Juulna](http://juulna.tumblr.com), aka the Reylux deity. Thank u bb. <3
> 
> Interviewer: So, DJ, a few questions for you. It's been proven that during the course of TFA, Kylo lost his helmet and had his lightsaber broken. For that matter, in Bloodlines, it's shown that canonically, Ben Solo's past is not in line with your projected timeline. How do you account for this?  
> Me: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Interviewer: Very interesting. Now, in this latest chapter, it looks like everything is nicely resolved. They've had their big climactic fight, so everything from here on out should be smooth sailing, right?  
> Me: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> Interviewer: Are you just going to keep holding up pictures of emojis during the entire course of this interview?  
> Me: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


End file.
